->''Our historical novels have fallen with terrible sameness into two or three grooves. We might almost say that a man is not allowed to write an historical novel except about four different historical periods, about six different historical characters; and even about them he is not allowed to take any view except that taken by the other romances on the same subject. Now, considering the countless millions of marvellous, amusing, unique, and picturesque things that have thronged on top of each other through all our wonderful three thousand years of European history, this state of affairs is as Byzantine and benighted as if no landscape painter ever painted anything but a larch tree, or as if none of our sculptors could model anything except the left leg.''-->-- '''Creator/GKChesterton'''

A side effect of HollywoodHistory, these are time periods that rarely, if ever, appear in fiction. Maybe the writers/executives/etc. aren't aware of or familiar with them. Maybe they fear the ignorance of the viewers. Whatever the reason, mentioning these time periods will leave the audience confused over some details and [[GeniusBonus the history buffs cheering]].

Some periods really lend themselves to fiction - there's just something compelling about AncientEgypt and ThoseWackyNazis that means it's not surprising how often they show up. However, after a while it gets a little baffling why equally fascinating periods get left out. Ancient China was as imperial and decadent as Rome, with the technological progress of Renaissance Europe and ships the size of small castles, but where's their summer blockbuster?

One not-unsubstantiated theory is that most Hollywood movies are aimed at white people. Studio executives will often fear that [[http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/07/study_finds_white_people_dont_watch_black_movies.html white audiences will stay away if there are too many people of color in a film.]] Places and times that white people are notably absent from won't often get featured unless a RaceLift is done to the main cast (note how many times movies set in pre-Ptolemy AncientEgypt feature an all-white cast), or a [[MightyWhitey white person or persons]] are inserted into the story, to give the (mostly white) target audience someone who looks like them, with whom they can sympathize. Even if the setting ''does'' have white people in it, if said people aren't part of British or American history, they can still be largely ignored by the (mostly American) Hollywood film industry..

This page is intended to be a resource of particularly interesting periods almost-forgotten, in the hope that they will get more exposure over time, if only to the wiki.

Time Periods are roughly organized into the following:# Pre-History: The time before the written word, before civilization, farming, etc., and thus far too boring to depict. OlderThanDirt.# Ancient History: OlderThanDirt or OlderThanFeudalism. If you aren't one of the 4 main civilizations, you didn't exist. See below for more details.# Middle History: OlderThanPrint. Typically depicted in MedievalStasis, despite many flourishing contemporary empires.# Modern History: OlderThanSteam, OlderThanRadio, etc.

Just some notes:* If you know of any works related to a given time period, please create a list under the related folder if one doesn't already exist and then add the works.* If a wiki page exists for the time period, please link it in.* If you know something about the period, and know that it isn't featured somewhere else in the wiki, please add the information to the text for that time period.** If said text becomes big enough, it may warrant moving to a more isolated spot on the page, such as the example Roman Empire under Christianity below. Surrounding it with [[HowToFolder folder tags]] will also keep it manageable** If said text becomes too big for a folder, recommend it as a YKTTW, using the information in the folder as a starting point. If you are successful, remove all but the basic information from this page and place it on the new one. Ensure a wiki link is available for anyone who wishes to follow up on it.

CreatorProvincialism can result in a specific time period having a lot of coverage in the media of a particular region and being virtually unknown outside that area.

If you know anyone looking to do a TroperWork or FanFic, but who needs a setting, point them to this page.

Contrast HollywoodHistory, and many others. For the biology-related SisterTrope, check out SeldomSeenSpecies. Not to be confused with TheGreatestStoryNeverTold.

[[foldercontrol]]

!Pre-Ancient Times[[folder:Examples]]* After the dinosaurs died out, but before the ice ages and way before humans began migrating. The entire span between the dinosaur extinction and the ice age (a span of some 63 million years full of many prehistoric animals) do not show up in fiction that often, whether magical-based, time-travel, science-based, etc.** [[foldercontrol]]

*** ''Series/WalkingWithBeasts'' is a fake nature documentary about some of the cooler prehistoric animals.* Although the Mesozoic period as a whole is rather well-represented, the Triassic period is left mostly forgotten. The mid-Jurassic and the late-Cretaceous are where most StockDinosaurs come from.* You don't get much Prehistory '''before the dinosaurs''', either. You'll never see an eccentric billionaire extracting fossil DNA from coal deposits to create Carboniferous Park.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

*** ''Anime/{{Ponyo|OnTheCliffByTheSea}}'' takes place in contemporary times, but much of the aquatic sea life present during the abnormal-seas portions of the film are intended to be from the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devonian Devonian]] period (416–359.2mya), where most of the planet was submerged (which figures in a major plot point). ShownTheirWork indeed.*** The Nontolma, an undersea-dwelling precursor race from ''Manga/SgtFrog'', seem to take the form of ''Anomalocaris'', an arthropod from the Cambrian period.*** Anomalocaris actually seems to be pretty popular in Japan for some reason. There's both a Franchise/{{Pokemon}} and Franchise/{{Digimon}} based on it as well as Sandalphon's evolved form in ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' and a character in ''Anime/AfterWarGundamX'', Caris Nautilus named after them.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** The underwater territory of the Transparent Adept in the ''Literature/ApprenticeAdept'' series is home to sea scorpions, ammonites, and other Paleozoic sea creatures, evidently because cool.** [[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

*** ''Series/PrehistoricPark'' featured a Carboniferous creature, Meganeura (a giant dragonfly). It had to be kept in a special oxygenated room due to the changes in the Earth's atmosphere since then.* '''The Ice Age''' itself is pretty thin as well, and when it appears, all the glaciations are lumped together with MisplacedWildlife. Sometimes (most notably by Robert Howard and JRR Tolkien) it is used to place there a forgotten fantasy world with magic and mythical creatures.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** In Creator/PoulAnderson's ''Literature/TimePatrol'' stories, prehistory is often used for recreation and training. "Gibraltar Falls" takes place then, on the falls from the Atlantic into what would be, one day, the Mediterranean.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

*** ''WesternAnimation/IceAge'', of course.* Before the Creation of the Universe ** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

*** The Infinity Stones of Creator/MarvelComics. * Before the Earth was Formed ** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

*** The Earth Formed when the The Racnoss arrived and their ship became the core of the planet in ''Series/DoctorWho''. [[/folder]]

[[folder:The Mediterranean]]Pretty much any civilisation predating Classical Greece:* The Minoans* The Phoenicians were at one point one of the richest, most powerful seafaring civilizations in Europe, they also pioneered the alphabet . Yet until they settle down in Carthage and start fighting the UsefulNotes/PunicWars against Rome, who's ever mentioned them?** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** Creator/PoulAnderson's ''Literature/TimePatrol'' story "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks" takes place in Tyre.*** Tyre is also the setting for ''Iron Dawn'' by Matthew Woodring Stover.* '''Sumer''' appears mostly when the author needs AncientAstronauts or something comparable.** [[/folder]]

*** Important in ''Literature/SnowCrash'', though it doesn't actually take place then.*** Creator/PoulAnderson's ''Literature/TimePatrol'' story "Brave To Be A King" takes place mostly in ancient Persia, and Manse is deeply concerned that he can not save a time traveler because of the historical significance of Cyrus the Great.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Web Original ]]

*** In the ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'', [[CainAndAbel SCPs-073 and -076]] are heavily implied to be Sumerian.*** There are [[http://www.theonion.com/content/news/sumerians_look_on_in_confusion_as two]] [[http://www.theonion.com/content/node/37481 articles]] in ''Website/TheOnion'' about Sumeria. ("Sumeria" is a common misnomer. The language and people are "Sumerian" but the civilization is Sumer, pronounced "soo-mair" if you have a General American accent).* '''Mesopotamia and the Ancient Middle-East''' in general, with the exception of AncientEgypt and stories from Literature/TheBible, the whole region merely provides a wildly inaccurate bunch of AlwaysChaoticEvil enemies of AncientGrome.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

*** There's a flashback to ancient Mesopotamia in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' comic ''War Cry'', although the captioned date is more than a thousand years off.** [[/folder]]

*** ''Literature/{{Creation}}'' by Creator/GoreVidal shows an incredibly detailed portrayal of Persia and the Middle-East in the reign of Darius II.*** ''Literature/TheShahnameh'' is set in legendary and historical Iran. Of course, it was written by Ferdowsi, a Persian.*** Creator/RobertSilverberg's ''Gilgamesh the King'' is a {{Demythtification}} of ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', set in Mesopotamia around 2500 BC.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Music ]]

*** Music/TheB52s song "Mesopotamia", though it even admits it doesn't know the facts.---> "Now I am no student, of ancient culture.\\Before I talk, I should read a book.\\But there's one thing, that I do know.\\There's a lot of ruins in Mesopotamia."*** "The Mesopotamians", a song by Music/TheyMightBeGiants.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

*** ''VideoGame/{{Pharaoh}}'', being a game set during the rise of Egypt, has the Hittites and Hyksos as recurring [[GoddamnedBats enemies]], and a few Middle-Eastern cities as potential trading partners.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Visual Novels ]]

*** Gilgamesh is one of the [[BigBad Big Bads]] of ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', though he's depicted as a fair-skinned blonde guy with no beard.* The Hittites and ancient Anatolia** [[/folder]]

*** Roger Kupelian's upcoming ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPtEfPCAIjQ East of Byzantium]]'', about the war between the Persians and the Armenians in 451 A.D., is due to be made into a mini-series in Fall 2014 after a lengthy stay in DevelopmentHell, but a [[http://eastofbyzantium.blogspot.com/ graphic novel version]] is further along, with two volumes released so far.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** Creator/{{Xenophon}}'s ''Literature/{{Anabasis}}'' partly takes place here, making it one of the only contemporary historical sources on pre-Christian Armenia.[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Americas]]* Outside of a few offhand references, there isn't a whole lot of mention of the Aztec civilization; or them actually being conquered. (Naturally, you can bet they'd all forget that if Cortes actually had his way, the Aztecs and Tlaxcalans would have been treated as Spanish Nobility). See {{Mayincatec}} for examples, of various levels of historical accuracy.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** ''Creator/NormanSpinrad'' wrote a novel about the conquest titled ''Mexica''. From the title alone, the possible grade of historic accuracy can be inferred (hint: the Aztecs never called themselves Aztecs, they were Mexica).** [[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

*** The ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial "The Aztecs" is set here (made back when the show was still supposed to have an educational element).* Native Americans before the coming of the Europeans. To be fair not much is known about ancient North America, due to a general lack of ancient ruins or written history to examine.** Even better, when there ''[[http://www.philipcoppens.com/egyptiancanyon.html are]]'' some, they ''must be'' from ancient Egypt. Because according to HollywoodHistory everyone else only sucked their thumbs and waited for the Europeans' arrival.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** In Creator/PoulAnderson's ''Literature/TimePatrol'' story "The Only Game In Town", a Mongol expedition is working its way down the West Coast and two Patrolmen have to stop it and keep it from getting back. (Manse realizes that in fact they are tampering with time -- the Time Patrol is keeping not the untampered-with history but the one they like -- because nothing really should have stopped them.)** ''Literature/TheRoyalDiaries'' series, about historical princesses, has two books about Native Americans right before and during first contact with the Europeans. ''Weetamoo, Heart of the Pocassetts'' takes place in New England in 1653, and ''Anacaona, Golden Flower'' takes place on Hispaniola in 1490.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

*** ''Disney/BrotherBear''* God(s) bless your heart if you somehow find a story about Mesoamerican or South American civilizations besides the Aztec, or even about the Aztecs prior to the Conquest. So we don't see much about the Incas, and specially not from civilizations that predate the Post-Classical Mesoamerican Period like the Toltec, Mixtec, Classic Maya, Zapotec, or Monte Alban. Likewise, a long list of lowland and pre-Inca South American civilizations are routinely ignored. The Mound Builders or Mississippian civilization in North America, and the Amazonian civilization in South, are so obscure even the history buffs barely know of them (especially as the latter was discovered only relatively recently).** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** ''Film/{{Apocalypto}}'' is about the Maya and it is terribly inaccurate, but does have dialogue ''entirely in Mayan''. For starters, the Mayans are portrayed in warrior-like terms closer to the Aztec.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** ''Literature/{{Aztec}}'' is one of the most notable examples of a novel about the Aztec before Cortez, even if he appears at the end.*** The ''Literature/ObsidianAndBlood'' trilogy is set in pre-conquest Tenochtitlan. Though it is, technically, ''Main/HistoricalFantasy'', the setting is very well researched, just add blood magic.*** ''Literature/TheRoyalDiaries'' series has a book about the Lady of Palenque of the Mayans.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

*** ''Disney/TheEmperorsNewGroove'': Vaguely takes place in the Inca Empire.*** ''WesternAnimation/TheRoadToElDorado'' takes place at the time of the conquistador Cortez's voyage.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Other ]]

*** There was an AdventureGame set in Tenochtitlan.[[/folder]]

[[folder:India]]Ancient India may lack a great deal in written records but this was a time of the Indus Valley Civilization (there has never been a movie set in this era) Twhich flourished for some 600 years from 2500-1900 BC, but their writing is still undecipherable, limiting what archaeologists can learn. As early as 2000 BC many regions of South Asia entered the "Iron Age." A great many cultural and scientific achievements originated in South Asia, and yet very little is depicted about its history. India during [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_Age the Axial Age]] was a complex, regionally diverse region, located in modern day Bihar, which witnessed in succession: the rise of the Nanda Kings, the Invasion of Alexander and the rise of the Mauryas.

Generally, movies and books set in this era, tend to be biopics of Gautama Buddha. Likewise the long period after the fall of Asoka and the rise of the Guptas, the reign of the Guptas, the Cholas and many other pre-Islamic civilizations tend to go unmentioned, even in UsefulNotes/{{Bollywood}}, which needless to say [[TheThemeParkVersion is not quite accurate]]* [[/folder]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

** ''Buddha'' by Osamu Tezuka.* [[/folder]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

** This area is well known to Indian children through the popular Amar Chitra Katha comics featuring Chanakya, Ashoka and Buddha. * [[/folder]]

** ''[[http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_junkandhow.htm The Junk and the Dhow]]'' by Creator/RudyardKipling. A little twisting of a marlinspike in a wound, over the [[WhileYouWereInDiapers difference between the current superiority and historical priority.]]** ''Literature/{{Creation}}'' by Creator/GoreVidal has an entire middle section dealing with the reign of King Ajatashatru, the politics of Buddhism and face-time with Gautauma Buddha himself. [[/folder]]

[[folder:The History of Rome and the Mediterranean]]* The Roman Kingdom (whose oversight is OlderThanTheyThink -- even the later Roman sources that survive today are unreliable and [[TheTimeOfMyths heavily mythologized]]).** In ''Film/{{Gladiator}}'', a senator describes Rome as being founded as a Republic, rather than a kingdom. WordOfGod is that this statement was incorrect within the film itself.** Creator/WilliamShakespeare's long poem ''The Rape of Lucrece'' describes the casus belli of the revolt. * UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic is presented as the GloryDays of UsefulNotes/TheGloryThatWasRome and unambigously invoked as GoodRepublicEvilEmpire. Yet we almost never ''see'' the Republic in its glory days, leave alone the Pyrrhic War and the UsefulNotes/PunicWars. Most fiction deals with the Twilight of the Republic, the Third Servile War (aka [[Podcast/TheHistoryOfRome Spartacus Rocks, starring Spartacus]]), the First and Second Triumvirate, the career of Creator/JuliusCaesar, Mark Antony, Creator/{{Cicero}}, Catilina, Brutus and Augustus. Missing are {{Cincinnatus}}, and Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, both of whom invent street politics, egalitarian reform, protest marches only to get killed by the aristocratic senate. The names Gracchus are invoked in many late republican-early empire stories, but you never see the real thing, since it directly touched on how thoroughly unequal and oppressive the old Republic really was, ** [[ShownTheirWork Again]] in ''Film/{{Gladiator}}'', the Punic wars are invoked. One of the GladiatorGames is a recreation of the Battle of Zama. Maximus played the Punic side, and defies history by winning.** In Creator/PoulAnderson's ''Literature/TimePatrol'' story "Delenda Est", the Punic Wars prove to be the crucial era, and the climax lies in ensuring that the Scipios survive a battle.** Creator/GustaveFlaubert's ''Literature/{{Salammbo}}'' was a highly exoticized depiction of the era preceding the Second Punic War, featuring Hamilcar Barca and his mercenaries.* The UsefulNotes/JewishRevolts, if at all, are almost exclusively invoked in connection with the Life of Jesus Christ (and [[Film/MontyPythonsLifeOfBrian Brian]]) and the rise of Christianity, which sprang as a consequence. Such fascinating figures as Flavius Josephus, Simon Bar Khokba, the Sicarii (aka the OG Ninja and Asasiyun) and events like the fall of Jerusalem and the siege of Masada are almost never featured in HistoricalFiction, separate from the Life of Christ. * The Christian Roman Empire (Not to be confused with the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire -- Charlemagne ''et al''). In the last days of UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire, Christianity was on the rise. Fear of persecution, invasions from outsiders, and the quickly deteriorating interior was forcing the empire to give up more and more power to the religious figures and the land owners. In order to try and stabilize the empire, it was divided into two sections: East and West. The East would eventually become the Byzantine Empire, and would survive for a long while. The west would continue to break apart and enter into MedievalStasis for the next 500 years. In fiction, it's depicted either as if there was no difference at all to pre-Christian Rome, or teeming with {{Corrupt Church}}men who run the place as if it belonged to them.** The exception is the reign of Emperor Julian the Apostate, who tried to revive Hellenism and failed and whose reign marks the DeathOfTheOldGods. His life has led to several plays, including ''Emperor and Galilean'' by Creator/HenrikIbsen and Literature/{{Julian}} by Creator/GoreVidal. ** The German-Italian-Romanian two-part film epic ''Kampf um Rom'' (1968/69), based on the novel ''Ein Kampf um Rom'' ("A Struggle for Rome", 1876) by Felix Dahn, is set during the Eastern Roman Empire's invasion of Ostrogothic Italy. ** Marguerite Yourcenar's ''Memoirs of Hadrian'.* A number of medieval epics and Norse sagas (both descending from earlier Germanic stories) centre on Theoderic the Great (aka Dietrich of Berne = Verona), who set up a kingdom in Italy after the Western Roman Empire collapsed.** UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun appears in a few movies and also in various medieval epics (as [[Literature/{{Nibelungenlied}} Etzel in German]], and [[Literature/TheSagaOfTheVolsungs Atli in Scandinavian versions]]).** ''Film/KingArthur'' is set in late Roman Britain.** ''{{Film/Agora}}'' is set in Roman Egypt during this time period. [[/folder]]

[[folder:Other Ancient Era Examples]]* Pre-Qin Dynasty China rarely shows up unless regarding Confucius (The "Spring and Autumn" era)* The Hellenistic world is a fascinating era of scientific advances, syncretic cultures, the beginnings of the non-theistic model of the universe, war on a massive scale, treachery, debauchery, terror, beauty, the first massive clash of monotheism and polytheism, and, unless you count ''VideoGame/RomeTotalWar'', a complete media blackout.** ''Literature/ThaisOfAthens'' by the Soviet writer Ivan Yefremov is set in the early Hellenistic period at the times of UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat. Originally published in 1973, it was first translated into English in 2011.** While famous for 'Gates of Fire' (Thermopylae), Steven Pressfield has also written a couple of books about Alexander the Great. Special mention goes to 'The Afghan Campaign', for being set entirely in Central Asia and for making an excellent read alongside the then-current Afghan War.** Christian Cameron has written the Tyrant series, dealing with the latter part of Alexander's reign and the subsequent Successor conflicts. Even the first book, set while Alexander is still alive, is mostly set on the Black Sea coast and deals with the politics of Greek colonies, Macedonian expansion and the Scythian tribes who live there.** There are also of course several plays, films etc. about Cleopatra VII Philopater, the last Ptolemaic Queen of Egypt.* '''Ancient Africa''', apart from Egypt (see below), didn't exist as far as entertainment media believes. That's the second-largest, second-most-populous and longest-inhabited continent on the planet. HollywoodHistory goes Cradle of Life -> millennia of DarkestAfrica -> a [[AncientEgypt hugely advanced civilization appears out of nowhere along the Nile]] (must have been put there by AncientAstronauts), then [[Literature/TheBible Moses flees to Israel]] and nothing much happens until the Boer War (or possibly Live Aid). This is despite Africa having had several great civilizations throughout its history, such as the Ethiopian empire, Carthage, the Berbers, the Zulus... Even from a European perspective, there's the "Scramble for Africa" in the late 1800s, when several competing empires carved the continent up into colonies.** There are quite a few films, novels etc. set in the "Scramble for Africa" era, especially if they involve British explorers or their fictional equivalents (''She'' and other stories by H. Rider Haggard) or battles between the British and various African people and civilizations. *** The Zulu wars are obviously covered in ''Zulu'' and ''Zulu Dawn''.*** The war in Sudan against the "Mahdi" appears in ''The Four Feathers'' and ''Khartoum'' (1966).*** Portuguese exploration of Angola is explored in ''[[Literature/TheRoyalDiaries Nzingha: Warrior Queen of Matamba]]''.* When it comes to '''AncientEgypt''' it's almost always portrayed as an AnachronismStew of both the Old and New Kingdoms, where you might see for example the Pyramids of Giza being built during the New Kingdom. Egypt is also confused with the Biblical narratives like Joseph and Moses, despite the lack of hard historical evidence. Tutankhamen gets severely overplayed despite what a minor pharaoh he actually was (it actually says something that ''his'' tomb was the one that got overlooked by looters for over 2000 years). Most of Ancient Egypt's 3000 year history is ignored.** Looters got into his tomb not once, but ''twice.'' Thing is they were caught both times, and that his why his tomb was such a mess, the second time the guards sorta just threw all the treasure back in and sealed it back up, which is why the entrance sealing stone thing had a section with different seals on it when Carter finally found it.** The Pharoah Akhenaten, King Tut's dad, is well represented. He is credited with inventing monotheism, pictorialism and reform and he's often invoked by later writers in positive and negative terms. He is the subject of books by Naguib Mahfouz and an opera by Philip Glass, while UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud controversially discussed his influence on Judaism in his ''Moses and Monotheism''. His wife, Nefertiti, also became popular when her incredibly well-preserved bust was unearthed in the 20th Century and Nefertiti is often invoked as a Pharoah queen even in eras of AnachronismStew. ** Rameses II is immortalized as ''Ozymandias'' by Percy Shelley and as the BigBad in ''Film/TheTenCommandments'', ''WesternAnimation/ThePrinceOfEgypt'' and ''Film/ExodusGodsAndKings''. The actual guy shows up in Norman Mailer's ''Ancient Evenings''. Did we mention that the Biblical and Rabbinic tradition refers to Moses' adversary as simply "The Pharoah", that the idea of Rameses II chasing the Jews out of Egypt is entirely a mid-20th Century invention? * The entire history of the '''Byzantine Empire'''. The turbulent and splendid reign of Justinian I is somewhat better represented than the rest of the empire's history.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** Creator/HarryTurtledove has a [=PhD=] in Byzantine history, so several of his books feature this period while others, set in more modern times, occasionally {{lampshade|Hanging}} the fact that this area is considered extraordinarily obscure even among historians..*** The ''Literature/BelisariusSeries'' is an AlternateHistory set in this era.*** The John the Eunuch Mysteries by Mary Reed, set in the reign of Justinian I.* '''The Great Persian War''' (AD 602-628). An epic 26-year struggle between Persia and the Roman Empire that started when Shah Khosrau II declared war on Rome to avenge the assassination of his benefactor Emperor Maurice by the tyrannical usurper Phocas. Emperor Heraclius rises up and overthrows Phocas and leads a massive campaign to drive out the Persians, who have conquered half of the Roman Empire. Why is this ignored? Perhaps, in addition to the general ignorance on the Byzantine Romans and the Sassanid Persians, is the futility of the entire war, as just a few years after the end of the war, the Arab Caliphate shows up and conquers Persia and most of the Roman Empire.* '''The ancient Celtic Peoples''' -- Gaels, Welsh, Britons, or Gauls -- mostly show up as a stock BarbarianTribe for the Romans to fight. There's a limited amount of French and British work depicting them, particularly their resistance to the invasions of Julius Caesar and, later, Claudius. Like so many of the examples on this page, it doesn't help that [[OneSideOfTheStory they didn't have any recorded history of their own]].** On the other hand, Ireland and Wales do have extensive oral histories and legends -- few of which are well-known to the general public.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

*** ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}} the Gaul'' is probably the most prominent.*** ''Alix''** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** Fiction about Myth/KingArthur is occasionally set in this time period (such as in the 2004 movie).** [[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

*** [[Creator/MontyPython Terry Jones]]' documentary series ''Barbarians'' makes a point of exploring the diverse tribes which the Romans lumped together under the term, including the Gauls.

'''Germanic Peoples''', similarly with the Celts above, are rarely depicted properly, particularly in their pre-Christian pagan tribal forms. (Except in the case of the vikings, see middle ages below). The only thing people remember was that there were some kind of Goths who, strangely, didn't wear any black lipstick.

'''Slavic Peoples''', due mainly to little to no contact with history-recording cultures prior to Christian influence, experience this to an even greater degree. The history of Slavs before their first historically recorded states (Rurik's in the East, Mieszko's in Poland, Asparukh's Bulgarian Khanate, and so on) is a blank slate, on which only the local hurrah-patriots dare to draw what they please.

'''Illyrians, Dacians, Thracians''' are in even worse situation than the Slavs, as the only modern nations that can claim descent are the Romanians and the Albanians, and even then, the details are still under dispute. This is in spite of their definite importance in the Antiquity.* [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

** At the very least, there is a Romanian film ''The Dacians''.** Spartacus is probably the most famous Thracian and shows up in [[Film/{{Spartacus}} quite]] [[Series/SpartacusBloodAndSand some media]]. Who may or may not bother to mention he's a Thracian. ** Some Illyrian characters appear in the sequel to ''Film/TheScorpionKing'', and they even get speaking roles.* [[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

** ''VideoGame/RomeTotalWar''

'''The Scythians''' and their related peoples ruled the steppes until they were supplanted by the Turkic peoples in the Middle Ages, but fiction has all its "horse nomads" slots taken by the Mongols.* [[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

** ''VideoGame/RomeTotalWar''[[/folder]]

!Middle Ages (500 - 1500 A.D.)* Due to MedievalStasis, many cultures other than the Vikings during this age aren't shown until UsefulNotes/TheCrusades and TheHighMiddleAges. Nevermind that technology and history weren't static during this period, especially in the much-ignored Arab and South Asian civilizations of the period.

[[folder:Examples]]* Ireland was a rich culture and stable society long before the Vikings and then the British turned up; Peter Tremayne's ''Sister Fidelma'' series is rare in depicting seventh-century Eireann and its surprisingly modern attitudes, for example, towards women's rights. The Irish also evangelized the British Isles and much of Europe, but the rise of Roman Catholicism eventually overshadowed the Celtic variety.* Unless you're reading the ''Series/{{Cadfael}}'' mysteries or watching their TV adaptations, you'd think the Anarchy never happened and the only civil war England ever had was the one with Cromwell.* '''The Khmer Empire'''. Ruled most of Southeast Asia from around 800-1400AD, and had a capital at Angkor, the largest pre-industrial city ever discovered.** ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'' had a chapter set in a Cambodian temple in 1150 AD. The other chapter in this location, however, took place in 1983.* The Carolingian and Ottonian periods of '''the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire'''* '''The Empire of Mali''' -- maybe the most powerful state of the 11th Century due to its gold mines.* '''The Genpei War''' (1180-1185), the rough-and-tumble war that gave birth to the Golden Age of the samurai, heralding the rise of Japan's first shogunate after 400 years of nominal rule by an imperial court. Definitely not on the scale of the more popular UsefulNotes/SengokuPeriod, but arguably ''much'' more dramatic. It was fought by samurai back when they were still regarded as uncouth soldiers [[ItWillNeverCatchOn with no business ruling a nation]], it was the culmination of a decades-long feud between two rival families for control of the court at Heian, and (most memorably) it ended with the victorious shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo apparently going insane and [[CainAndAbel turning against his brother]], ultimately forcing him to commit suicide while fleeing his home.** ''Film/SukiyakiWesternDjango''** ''Literature/TomoeGozenSaga''** ''VideoGame/GenpeiToumaDen''** ''VideoGame/{{Genji}}''** ''VideoGame/TotalWarShogun2'''s "Rise of the Samurai" DLC* '''Central Asia''' was called into existence by the mighty UsefulNotes/{{GENGHIS KHAN}}, who proceeded to rule for several centuries as the ruler of any HordesFromTheEast who might be needed to harass Europeans. After this it went back to being shepherds for a while before becoming the stock screwed up place run by warlords to provide some necessary tension between the U.S. and Soviets/Russians during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. According to some historians (e.g. Peter Turchin) Central Asia was more important as a centre of civilization than either Europe or China -- the only reason they were perceived as savages early on is that Europeans and Chinese kept encroaching on their territory, and they logically tried to defend it!** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** There is ''Genghis Khan'', of course, and the ''Literature/{{Conqueror}}'' series. The real ghost period is ''after'' UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan - the only reason for Borat being set in Kazakhstan is its current status as TheUnpronounceable (if you don't try very hard) ThrowawayCountry no-one knows anything about.*** Kublai Khan is often featured in fiction because Marco Polo met him and wrote about him in Literature/TheTravelsOfMarcoPolo. As such his reign is invoked by poets and writers out of disproportion to his actual historical importance. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem Xanadu is one such example. Creator/ItaloCalvino's ''Literature/InvisibleCities'' is another.*** Michael Chabon's ''Literature/GentlemenOfTheRoad'' is set in the Khazar Empire circa A.D. 950.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Theatre ]]

*** Creator/ChristopherMarlowe's ''Tamburlane'' is about Timur's conquests. Not historical but entertaining. * '''The Kingdom of Cilicia'''. Formed by Armenians fleeing the Seljuk Turks in 1080 along the southern coast of Anatolia just north of Cyprus, it was a key player in the Crusades on the side of the Christians, and later allied itself with the Mongols against the Islamic Mamluks, though on the losing side. They were conquered by the Mamluks in 1375, the king fleeing to France. If you're lucky you might see a brief mention of it in history books dealing with the era.* '''The Indian Sub-Continent''' definitely didn't exist prior to the arrival of the British. Never mind those pesky Mughals who after all invented [[EiffelTowerEffect the Taj Mahal]], centralized North India, established Delhi as the centre of gravity, represented the GoldenAge of medieval religious tolerance. Also forgotten are the Rajputs, the rise of the Sikhs, the Maratha Empire, the Goan Inquisition, Sher Shah Suri (who invented the Rupee), Tipu Sultan of Mysore ([[EmperorScientist who pioneered rocket technology which he mounted on Elephants]]) and such events as the Three Battles of Panipat, Nader Shah's Sack of Delhi, the Fall of Vijayanagar, the capture of the Mughal Ship Ganj-i-Sawai. ** [[/folder]]

*** ''Literature/TheEnchantressOfFlorence'' by Creator/SalmanRushdie takes place during the rule of Akbar. *** ''[[Literature/TheRoyalDiaries Jahanara, Princess of Princesses]]'', a fictionalized diary of the real princess Jahanara (daughter of Shah Jahan, the builder of the Taj Mahal) takes place in 1627, around the time the British are first exploring India.* '''South East Asia''' doesn't exist prior to the Vietnam War or, if you are very very lucky, the arrival of European traders. "Asia" then means feudal China, samurais, ninjas and kung fu. Not a lot of Hollywood movies are set "now" in SE Asia either (at least ones that don't think the whole area is mired down in some form of guerrilla war), though countries in the region do have fairly active local film industries.** There are a few involving western backpackers; ''Literature/TheBeach'' springs to mind.* '''The Arabian Golden Age''' of the 9th to 13th centuries doesn't get much play outside of the Crusades (at least it has [[ArabianNightsDays a trope]]). Such events as the birth of the House of Wisdom, its sophisticated Automatons, its flowering of science and innovation in Baghdad and in al-Andalus is often invoked rhetorically as GloryDays rather than actually seen. Successive Persian empires are largely absent also. ** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** Youssef Chahine's ''Destiny'' was a {{Biopic}} and Musical on the philosopher Averroes set during the twilight of the Moorish Golden Age.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** Creator/SalmanRushdie's ''The Moor's Last Sigh'' and his fantasy ''Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights'' also has sections dealing with the Convivencia and the decline of its brief period of multi-culturalism.*** Spanish Author Juan Goytisolo has devoted a lot of fiction restoring the Arab and Jewish origins of Spanish culture. His ''Count Julian'' was a PerspectiveFlip and belated HistoricalHeroUpgrade of the formerly villainous Julian of Ceuta, usually seen as LesCollaborateurs in pro-Reconquista historiography. *** Creator/LouisLAmour's ''The Walking Drum'' (intended to be the first of a series, but unfortunately he died before completing any others), is set in the 12th century and features a protagonist who lives in an old Roman house in Brittany, travels through the Moorish Empire (including Cadiz and Cordoba), Paris (where he remarks on how backwards its inhabitants seem compared to the Moors, especially with their lack of books), the Russian steppe (where the merchant caravan he is traveling with is attacked by Pechenegs, a tribe of Turkic nomads that was renowned for their fierce fighting at that time), and Constantinople, ending in modern-day Iran and the Fortress of Alamut (home of the original assassins). At the end of the book, [[SequelHook he plans to travel]] even farther east [[WhatCouldHaveBeen to the Indian subcontinent]]. All in all, the book is a fascinating look at civilizations and a time period rarely even mentioned by other authors (or, for that matter, in a world history class).* '''UsefulNotes/TheCrusades''' are the Third Crusade, immediately preceding years of Hattin and the reconquest of Jerusalem. If it doesn't have Richard I, Saladin, Templars and Assassins in it, people are not interested. As for the Fourth Crusade, the one where the Crusaders went and sacked Consantinople instead of the Holy Land, well that's not something people want to remember. ** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** Torquato Tasso's ''Jerusalem Liberated'' is an epic poem about the First Crusade, a HistoricalHeroUpgrade of Godfrey of Bouillon and the Sack of Jerusalem.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Web Video ]]

*** WebAnimation/ExtraCredits program ''Extra History'' tackles the First Crusade from its political origins to its bloody climax. It also covers the violent and destructive People's Crusade, a WackyWaysideTribe that collapsed into the first mass anti-semitic pogroms in European history. * '''The Hundred Years War''' covered hundred years and featured such important events and sub-conflicts as the Avignon Papacy, the Black Death, the uprising of the Jacquerie, Etienne Marcel's time as Provost, the Armagnac-Burgundian war. People generally know about this period because of UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc who was ShortLivedBigImpact. On the other hand, neither Edward III or the Black Prince appear very often.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

*** Both Edward III and the Black Prince appear in Creator/WarrenEllis' ''ComicBook/{{Crecy}}''.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** There's ''Film/AKnightsTale'' - however, it's such a shameless AnachronismStew that this doesn't have much bearing on anything.*** Creator/JohnHuston's ''A Walk With Love and Death'' is set during this time. ** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** The events leading to the war is covered in ''Literature/TheAccursedKings'', starting from ThePurge of the Templars, the legal chicanery (the Salic Law used to deny England's claim to the throne), the machinations of Isabelle, the She-Wolf of France and the Avignon Papacy.*** ''Literature/{{Timeline}}''*** Bernard Cornwell visits the earlier portion of the period in his ''The Grail Quest'' trilogy, around the time of the Battle of Crécy, and again, around sixty years later, in ''Azincourt'', which focuses on the eponymous Battle of Agincourt.*** ''WorldWithoutEnd''*** ''Captives of Time'', a novel set in France during the Hundred Years' War which also deals with the Black Death and technological change.*** ''The Black Arrow'', an 1888 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, actually set after the Hundred Years War during the War of Roses (and featuring Richard Crookback, future ''Theatre/RichardIII''.)*** There are a number of plays, sculptures etc. based on the episode of the Six Burghers of Calais, in which Edward III obviously appears.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Theatre ]]

*** The Hundred Years War is partially dealt with in Shakespeare's History plays, especially ''Theatre/HenryVIPartI'' and of course ''Theatre/HenryV''.* '''The Northern Crusades'''. The Crusades were not only fought in the Middle East, but also Northeastern Europe, where Western European powers fought old Prussians, Russians, and Lithuanians, with enormous historic consequences (such as the creation of Prussia). Not to mention Germans and Danes fighting against the Pomeranian Slavic tribes and Finland becoming a naturalized part of Sweden. In France, there was Catharism, which led to the Albigensian Crusade. Nobody outside the region knows much about these though, although it is a frequent topic among Russian, Polish, and Lithuanian literature.** Creator/SergeiEisenstein's ''Film/AlexanderNevsky''.** ''Literature/TheKnightsOfTheCross'', a Polish novel. Later part of the period.** While not Crusades-related per se, ''The Cross-Time Engineer'' sci-fi series by Polish-American author Leo Frankowski set in Medieval Eastern Europe. In it, a modern-day Polish engineer is transported back to 13th-century Poland to fight off the Mongol horde and various other threats to the Kingdom with superior technology.* '''The Kalmar Union'''. A seemingly forgotten European State that just happened to be the biggest state ''in the world'' at it's time, and included besides all of the Nordic Countries, portions of Britain and Germany as well. It lasted from 1397 to 1523 and saw years of war between a rebellious Sweden and her Danish masters. Civil War in Sweden between the anti-union and the pro-union side. Pirates. More [[NastyParty Nasty Parties]] and late medieval nastiness than you can shake a bastard sword at. But unfortunately Scandinavia seems to have ceased to exist after 1066 in the popular conscious.* While you ''might'' occasionally hear about medieval Russia and the other Eastern Slavs they interacted with, the '''medieval Western Slavs''' are never portrayed except perhaps passingly as inhabitants of an oppressed backwater province of the Holy Roman Empire, the Hapsburgs, or whichever Islamic empire was around in the time period being shown.** ''VideoGame/KingdomComeDeliverance'' takes place in the Kingdom of Bohemia (taking up much of the territory of the modern Czech Republic and several other Central and Eastern European countries) circa 1403, and deals with events such as the SuccessionCrisis resulting from the death of Charles IV and subsequent kidnapping of Wenceslaus IV by his brother Sigismund, the Western Schism of the papacy, and the events leading up to the Hussite Wars. [[CreatorProvincialism Made by Daniel Vávra and a bunch of other Czechs]].* The '''Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.''' You might be forgiven for not ever knowing there were countries between Russia and Prussia/Austria, because the three spent ''a lot'' of time going to war trying to get them wiped off the map. Formed by the union of Poland and Lithuanian essentially coming together purely to fight off the Germans and the Russians, it was actually a huge super power that encompassed almost a dozen modern day states including most of Belarus and Ukraine. It was continuously defeated in war and partitioned off between the three countries until it ceased to exist. [[/folder]]

!Modern Ages (1500 A.D. - 1914 AD)* Includes:** People (re-)discovering science;** People going on mighty quests of imperial missions, which in turn give recognition to many other civilizations.*** Creator/NealStephenson's ''Literature/TheBaroqueCycle'' covers this in extreme detail.*** James Clavell's works, especially ''Shogun''.*** Shusaku Endo's HistoricalFiction, ''Film/{{Silence}}'' and ''The Samurai''. The latter novels depicts an actual diplomatic mission of converted JapaneseChristian Samurai who travel from Japan to Mexico to Spain and Rome, and all the way back, this during the time of the late Sengoku Jidai period. ** The '''Atlantic Slave Trade''' covering four continents, multiple nations, navigation/transport/commerce/exports, overlapping with UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance and UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfPiracy (25-30% of all pirate crews were fugitive slaves) and involving all the great monarchs of Europe. About the only time this period is addressed, it involves noble white men abolishing slavery and freeing slaves, with none of the scope and impact addressed. *** The Haitian Revolution, notable as a) The only slave uprising successful in creation of an independent country, and b) Danny Glover's dream project (hampered by the obvious lack of a WhiteMaleLead). In Literature, its featured in Heinrich von Kleist's ''The Betrothal of Santo Domingo'' as well as Alejo Carpentier's ''The Kingdom of This World''.*** ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIVBlackFlag'' and its DLC ''Freedom Cry'' address the existence of the Atlantic Slave Trade across the Caribbean (Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti): the Royal African Company, Maroon Rebels, fugitive slaves on pirate ships and the collusion of several empires in the slave trade. [[folder:Europe before 1914]]* '''Eastern Europe'''. ''Any'' of it, really before the breakup of the Soviet Union (though it's mostly a [[BalkanizeMe shifting mass]] of [[ThrowawayCountry Throwaway Countries]] even then). Renaissance Dalmatia? Medieval Vienna? ** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** There's the ''Literature/SienkiewiczTrilogy'', a three-book epic set in 17th Century Poland and Lithuania. Of course, its author was Polish.*** Sienkiewicz's ''Literature/TheKnightsOfTheCross'' takes place around the time of the Battle of Grunwald (1410). In general this time period gets a lot of attention in Polish literature and film but is not really known outside of Poland.*** Poland-Lithuania deserves special mention, as it was ahead of its time politically (it influenced the American Founding Fathers) and its history is filled with wars, invasions, and generally having the odds stacked against it.*** There is ''Taras Bulba'', a novel by Nikolay Gogol (a Ukrainian), which was adapted into movies several times but was financially unsuccessful when it was turned into a Hollywood movie in 1966. "Taras Bulba" was also adapted into an orchestral rhapsody by the Czech composer Leos Janacek.*** The Polish-Lithuanian empire also appears as the invading enemy in Glinka's opera ''Ivan Sussanin'' (aka "A Life for the Czar") and in Pushkin's play ''Boris Godunov'' and the well-known opera (by Musorgsky) adapted from it. The Time of Troubles, with its major Russo-Polish war and civil wars in Russia, is the setting of those Russian operas and dramas, and little else.*** That era also appears in Friedrich Schiller's final unfinished play, ''Der falsche Demitrius'' ("The false Dmitry").* '''The Protestant Reformation''' is surprisingly under-represented. Martin Luther, Thomas Muntzer, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin and their merry men (and women) who changed the history of Europe are woefully lacking in depiction. The work of non-conformists like William Tyndale (whose translation of the Bible precede the King James Bible, which used it as a base) and also died as a martyr is far less known than say, St. Thomas More (who was a Catholic who opposed Henry VIII's protestantism). There aren't even movies showing the work of Gutenberg and other printers, who played a major role in developing literacy among the common man and gave rise to what Max Weber called the Protestant Ethic of UsefulNotes/{{Capitalism}}.* Most stories set in '''Tudor times''' take place under the reigns of Elizabeth I or Henry VIII, while Henry VII, Queen Mary I, and Edward VI are rarely touched upon.** Mary's reign is sometimes touched on, but usually to establish the social, religious, and political background of an Elizabethan piece, rather than as the focus in and of themselves.** It doesn't help that Edward VI and Mary I ruled for very short periods of time (around twelve years combined), whereas Henry VIII and Elizabeth I ruled the rest of the period from 1509 to 1603. Henry VII's absence is a little harder to justify, seeing as he ruled for over twenty years. However, his reign was one of peace, and usually forms the backdrop of any work on Henry VIII. That said, in ''Series/TheTudors'', Henry VIII briefly alludes to Perkin Warbeck's failed rising in Cornwall.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** ''Patience, Princess Catherine'' by Carolyn Meyer starts in 1501 when Catherine of Aragon goes to marry Arthur, but instead marries Henry VIII.*** ''Nine Days a Queen: The Short Life and Reign of Lady Jane Grey'' by Ann Rinaldi is about the 9 day reign of Lady Jane Grey, the cousin of Edward VI. She reigned between Edward VI and Mary I.** [[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

*** The Wars of the Roses are mentioned in ''Series/{{Blackadder}}''** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Theatre ]]

*** As well, of course, as Shakespeare's ''Theatre/RichardIII''* The Scottish Second Wars of Independence, the ''Armee Ecosse'' of the 15th century (pretty much the entire Scottish army is hired by the King of France) the Scots who fought in the Wars of the Roses, the battle of Flodden... For some reason, there seems to be this belief that Scottish history goes straight from Bannockburn (1314) to the battle of Culloden (1746), which misses out the intervening 432 years.* '''The UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar'''** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** Eric Flint's ''Ring of Fire'' series.*** Grimmelshausen's picaresque novels ''Der abentheuerliche Simplicissimus'' and ''Die Landstörtzerin Courasche''. The latter was adapted into a famous play by Bertolt Brecht.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

*** This is part of the backdrop to ''All For One: Regime Diabolique'', though it's primarily about [[CoolVersusAwesome Musketeers versus Werewolves and other Monsters]].*** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Theatre ]]

*** Friedrich Schiller's ''Theatre/{{Wallenstein}}''.*** Bertolt Brecht's ''Theatre/MotherCourageAndHerChildren''.* The first half of the Eighteenth Century and the Age of UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment. Okay, there were some guys named [[UsefulNotes/PeterTheGreat Peter the Great]] and [[UsefulNotes/CarolusRex Charles XII]]. Allegedly, they were monarchs and fought a war. The aforementioned Peter had a daughter? Troops under her almost conquered Prussia? You must be kidding me. ** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** Bertrand Tavernier's ''Que de Fete Commence'' tackles the reign of UsefulNotes/LouisXV. *** Jacques Rivette's ''La religieuse'' (adaptation of a novel by Diderot) shows the hypocritical world of convents before the Revolution. Nunneries are dumping grounds for un-marriagable noble daughters. Some of the nunneries are essentially high-class brothels. ** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** Jose Saramago's ''Baltasar and Blimunda'' tackles Portugal before the Lisbon Earthquake, showing the construction of the Marfa Cathedral, and feature historical figures like composer Domenico Scarlatti as well as Bartolomeu de Gusmão, a Priest who wrote down blueprints for a flying machine. Since this is MagicalRealism, this blueprints has a prototype that flies for real. * The French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802). Sure, there's plenty of fiction devoted to the French Revolution (1789-1792) and the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), but comparatively little fiction devoted to the period ''between'' those two events--when the newly-formed First French Republic spent an entire decade trying to export the ideals of the Revolution to the whole of Europe by ''force''. Note that these are the Wars where [[UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte a certain Corsican military officer]] first proved himself on the battlefield with the Revolutionary Army. Did we mention that their revolutionary fervor ended up [[OlderThanTheyThink giving birth to the concept of "total war" over a century before the First World War]]? Or that the French, featured the first coloured Regiment in the Western World, with Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (father [[Creator/AlexandreDumas of the novelist]]) ''still'' ranking as the highest ranked officer of African descent, in any European army, or that under Representant du Mission Victor Hugues, the first non-segrated white-and-black regiment repelled the English from Guadeloupe, and abolished slavery for the first time in the Western World?** The Revolt in the Vendée and Chouannerie is depicted in such works as ''Literature/NinetyThree'' by Creator/VictorHugo, books by Anthony Troloppe and Creator/HonoreDeBalzac. Creator/ItaloCalvino's novella, ''The Baron in the Trees'' briefly shows the Italian Campaign of the French Revolutionary Wars.** Cuban author Alejo Carpentier's ''Explosion in the Cathedral'' takes place in the French Antilles during the time of Revolution and covers the career of Victor Hugues, "the Robespierre of the Isles" who carries forth the First Republic's Abolition decree to its Caribbean colonies. ** Creator/JeanRenoir's film, ''La marseillaise'' (regarded by Creator/MartinScorsese as one of the greatest historical films ever made) tackles the Great Fear, the Provincial Federal volunteers, the storming of the Tuilleries and ends with the Battle of Valmy.* UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte and UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars looms large over the 19th Century, since England saw him as their ArchEnemy, and France and other Francophile Europeans saw Napoleon as a ByronicHero and/or VisionaryVillain. This leaves a fertile in-between area dealing mainly with how ordinary people felt about Napoleon, the work of dissenting intellectuals like Madame de Stael. They also rarely tackle how diverse Napoleon's army was (it had Irish and Polish regiments, as well as an Egyptian Mameluke contingent, who were brutally massacred in the wake of Napoleon's final defeat by Catholic xenophobes), nor does it deal with the fact that Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo led to France being occupied for nearly five years, the longest until UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. ** ''Goya's Ghosts'', a 2006 film starring Creator/JavierBardem and Creator/NataliePortman, tackles the Spanish campaign in the Wars. In particular, it deals heavily with the famed Spanish Romantic painter Francisco Goya (played by Bardem) and his role in documenting Napoleonic France's brutal occupation of Spain through his art. While the Peninsular War is covered in plenty of English HistoricalFiction, the Spanish experience during this conflict and that of other regional LaResistance (like the Tyrolean resistance in Austria) is fairly under-reported.** Youssef Chahine's film ''Adieu Bonaparte'' depicts Napoleon's Egyptian Expedition and portrays him as a MightyWhitey colonialist. The film doesn't back away from showing the brutality of Napoleon's conquests (namely a massacre at the Al-Azhar mosque in Cairo), and Napoleon's early megalomania. * The '''Congress of Vienna''' (1814-1815) and the subsequent reign of the '''Concert of Europe'''. It's understandable that the Congress is hugely overshadowed by the preceding Napoleonic Wars (which it was meant to discuss), but it's still a hugely important historical event in its own right, and arguably the ''perfect'' setting for a political thriller. At the time, it was the single largest gathering of European leaders in history, and one of the first times that a group of world leaders met--on equal footing--to hammer out national alliances and negotiate the political direction of an entire continent for decades afterwards. Understandably, it was a major influence on the later League of Nations, which sought to bring the same peace and stability to Europe after World War I that the Congress attempted to bring after the Napoleonic Wars. Not to mention that it included the exploits of Klemens von Metternich and Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (just "Talleyrand" to his admirers), two rival [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]]s of the highest order, who are still popularly regarded as two of the greatest diplomats in history.* 19th Century France might as well not exist in the period between the July Monarchy (immortalized in ''Les Miz'' and Balzac novels) and the Third Republic and the Belle Epoque. Such events as the 1848 Revolution (formation of the Second Republic), the Second Empire of Napoleon III, and even the UsefulNotes/FrancoPrussianWar crucial in the history of both UsefulNotes/{{France}} and UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} is little remarked on. This era included the arrival of the Indusrial Revolution to France, the beginning of France as a colonial empire, the redevelopment of UsefulNotes/{{Paris}} under Hausmann, the Dreyfuss Affair, but almost none of it is ever shown.** Creator/GustaveFlaubert's ''Literature/SentimentalEducation'' is set during the 1848 Revolution and the Second Republic, showing the prelude, euphoria and cynical collapse from the perspective of Frederic Moreau. ** Marcel Carne's classic film ''The Children of Paradise'' is set during this period.** Creator/JeanRenoir's ''Elena and Her Men'' (starring Creator/IngridBergman) covers the abortive coup of General Boulanger, a Bonaparte wannabe obsessed with revanchism over its ShockingDefeatLegacy ** Several of Guy de Maupassant's short stories are set during the Franco Prussian War, depicting the war crimes meted out on ordinary citizens. * [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune The Paris Commune of 1871]]. 72 days and a rather brutal ending. It would create a lovely backdrop for a story along the lines of the movie ''Gangs of New York''. Admittedly, there is ''The Voice of the People'' by Jean Vautrin, but there seriously needs to be a movie or more historical fiction about this little episode of history.** ''The Prague Cemetery'' by Creator/UmbertoEco covers it extensively, albeit through an UnreliableNarrator.** ''The Voice of the People'' was also adapted into a series of graphic novels by Jacques Tardi.** Bertolt Brecht wrote the play ''The Days of the Commune''.** In ''Film/BabettesFeast'', Babette is mentioned to have been a former ''Communarde''.** The Soviet movie ''The New Babylon'', set in a Paris department store before and during the Commune.** In 2000, experimental film-maker Peter Watkins made a TV production called ''La Commune'' which was 5 hours long and covered the events in the style of a live reportage, i.e., showing the Commune as if a 19th Century News Channel (complete with talking heads/analysis) would have covered these events if Broadcast News had existed then. * The '''Crimean War''' (1853-1856). With the Ottoman Empire in decline, the growing Russian Empire began expanding ever further south. France and Britain joined forces to stop them. Despite forming the setting for Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and the life's work of Florence Nightingale, very little attention is paid to this war.** In the AlternateHistory of the Literature/ThursdayNext novels, the Crimean War is still going on in the 1980s, against a still-TsaristRussia. Thursday's brother died there, and she met her husband while they were both on compulsory military service.* UsefulNotes/{{Italy}} between UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance and the rise of Mussolini is a blur. The UsefulNotes/WarsOfItalianIndependence or '''The Risorgimento''' had such things as the Unification of UsefulNotes/{{Italy}}, the career of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the birth of TheMafia and massive emigration from UsefulNotes/{{Sicily}} to the United States (including the ancestors of several notable Italian American artists) and the end of the Papal States is often uncommented on, never mind that this was the golden age of the Italian Opera, the time of philosophers and poets like Giambattista Vico, Giacomo Leopardi and many others. ** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** Creator/LuchinoVisconti's ''Senso'' and his more famous adaptation of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's ''Film/TheLeopard'' tackles the Risorgimento and its compromises.*** Creator/RobertoRossellini's ''Viva L'Italia'' depicts with Giuseppe Garibaldi. ** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** Creator/ItaloCalvino's ''The Baron in the Trees'' covers Italy during the Age of UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment.*** Creator/{{Stendhal}} was romantically fascinated with Italian culture, and lived there for several years. He wrote books on Rossini, underwent Stendhal Syndrome in Florence, and ended his career with ''Literature/TheCharterhouseOfParma'' a romantic adventure story about Italy, that isn't exactly historical but is impressionistic. [[/folder]]

[[folder:Historical and Cultural Figures]]* Philosophers in general. Creator/{{Socrates}}, Creator/{{Plato}}, Creator/{{Aristotle}} lived through tumultous eras and involved with politics and society, but most people have little idea why their ideas matter and how it influenced warriors and statesmen.Biopics of UsefulNotes/FrederickTheGreat and UsefulNotes/CatherineTheGreat exist, but what about the philosophers who inspired and palled around with them :Creator/{{Voltaire}} and Diderot. What of Creator/JeanJacquesRousseau and the Encyclopedia? The fact that there's no Hollywood movie about Creator/KarlMarx is not surprising, but the Soviets and other satellite nations never made a movie about their Prophet either. ** Creator/RobertoRossellini made films about philosophers like ''Socrates'' (ultra-obscure), ''Blaise Pascal'' and ''Cartesius'' (about Rene Descartes). The latter two films are available on Creator/TheCriterionCollection. Margarethe von Trotha recently made a film on ''Hannah Arendt'' starring Barbara Sukowa. In addition there are a few films about UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud. ** For all that '''Creator/NiccoloMachiavelli''' and Literature/ThePrince is popularly cited, it is surprising that there is no {{Biopic}} of the man, since his life was pretty eventful. It involved Machiavelli serving as the Gump and meeting famous Kings and Statesmen, discussing plans with Creator/LeonardoDaVinci serving as a politician in the Florentine Republic and organizing the citizen army he kept talking about. It ended with the 1512 sack of Florence, the return of the Medici which led to Machiavelli's torture and exile, which is ''when'' he wrote his most famous work. *** VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII and VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood show Machiavelli's career as a diplomat but not his later career. He also appears in TV shows about the Borgia. Creator/SalmanRushdie's postmodern HistoricalFiction ''Literature/TheEnchantressOfFlorence'' is about the only recent depiction you can find on Machiavelli's later career. * '''The Golden Age of Science''' goes undepicted, perhaps due to the general perception of science as boring. Even someone with a life as interesting as UsefulNotes/IsaacNewton has yet to have a biopic or two. The same applies to many other luminaries in the Golden Age, whether its Carolus Linnaeus, Leibniz and Gauss, leave alone obscure figures such as Alexander von Humboldt and Ada Lovelace. The real-life Royal Society was as close as one got to an AcademyOfAdventure in history, filled with guys who dreamed of going to the moon but it goes unseen.** Galileo and his trial is featured in Creator/BertoltBrecht's play which does highlight Galileo's LargeHam personality, his "borrowings" of the telescope from earlier work (which he ''did'' improve) and his writing work, but it's probably the only serious work of artistic biography of a scientist.** Copernicus appears in a [=PS3=]-exclusive DLC for ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood''* Of course Mathematicians will complain that they get a tougher deal. Science at least has experiments to depict and show, but maths are entirely theoretical, so that means the likes of Laplace, Lagrange, Evariste Gallois, Fermat and many others stay in the lurch.* There have been plenty of works showing Creator/LeonardoDaVinci, Michelangelo Bunoarotti and more movies on Creator/VincentVanGogh than all the paintings he didn't sell when he was alive, but absolutely none on such colourful painters as El Greco, Velazquez and especially Caravaggio. Caravaggio was a bad boy StarvingArtist who used prostitutes [[RefugeInAudacity to model as the Virgin Mary]], was a thief and also killed a man in a fight. You would assume that there isn't a lot to doll up to make him interesting. * Authors and poets are usually a dull lot and most of them WriteWhatYouKnow and put their life on the page. Nonetheless some writers did have colourful and interesting lives, nearly as interesting as what they depict on the page. Creator/WilliamShakespeare is mysterious enough to [[ShakespeareInFiction have his own trope]], as is Creator/OscarWilde and in modern times we've had fictional depictions of Kafka and Hemingway, but that still leaves a lot of colouful characters:** Miguel de Cervantes was a soldier, galley slave, ShellShockedVeteran, StarvingArtist, failed playwright who wrote Literature/DonQuixote out of desperation and went from RagsToRiches. ** With the exception of the prologue to Film/BrideOfFrankenstein'' there's no notalbe film about Percy Shelley and Lord Byron. Both of them were rebellious, [[SexAndDrugsAndRockAndRoll angsty poets who smoked drugs and had lots of sex in the Romantic era]]. They travelled across Europe and in the case of Byron, fought in the Greek War of Independence and eventually died. ** [[RagtagBunchOfMisfits Russian authors]] tended to be DarkerAndEdgier than their Continental and European counterparts. Creator/AlexanderPushkin died in a duel, Creator/NikolaiGogol [[MadArtist went mad]], Creator/LeoTolstoy died as an anarchist proto-hippie; Creator/FyodorDostoevsky[[note]](whose life inspired attempts to make a {{Biopic}} from the likes of Michael Cimino and Raymond Carver)[[/note]] underwent a mock execution, spent time in Siberia's proto-Gulag, worked as a StarvingArtist and was TheGamblingAddict, who juggled UsefulNotes/{{Epilepsy}} and a conversion to Orthodox Christianity. Yeah, [[SarcasmMode totally dull lot]]** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** Ken Russell made a film about Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites called ''Dante's Inferno''. It tackled Rossetti's obsessive and destructive passion for Elizabeth Siddal.*** Creator/RalphFiennes directed and starred as Creator/CharlesDickens in ''The Invisible Woman''.*** Jane Campion made a film on Creator/JohnKeats starring Ben Wishaw in ''Bright Star''.*** ''Total Eclipse'' featured Creator/LeonardoDiCaprio as Arthur Rimbaud David Thewlis as Verlaine.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** Dostoevsky appears as a HistoricalDomainCharacter in J. M. Coetzee's ''The Master of Petersburg'' and Leonid Tsypkin's ''Summer at Baden-Baden''.[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Americas before World War One]]* The '''Spanish Empire'''. You can even have entire book or movie sagas about pirates of the ''Spanish'' Main with no Spanish showing up ever.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** The villains of ''Film/AlmostHeroes'' are a random clan of Spaniards led by a conquistador named Hidalgo, who seem to be wandering the American mid-west in the very early 1800's for reasons not thoroughly explained in the film itself. *** There's ''Film/FourteenNinetyTwoConquestOfParadise'' about Columbus and his expedition funded by Queen Isabella of Castille. *** There's also ''Film/AguirreTheWrathOfGod''.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

*** Spain plays a big role in the ''VideoGame/UnchartedWaters'' video game series, although their historicity is [[AnachronismStew questionable]].*** ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' and ''VideoGame/SidMeiersPirates'' have historically-accurate initial maps of the Spanish Main. [[ThemeParkVersion Yet, all they do is act as mere set-ups for a game session]].** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** ''Franchise/{{Zorro}}'' anyone? (not to mention the numerous TV and film adaptations)* Let's just say Latin American history and save a lot of space. But if we must go for details:** The Conquest process was longer and more difficult than it is often given credit for. Mayan uprisings continued for a long time and the Inca had a few words to say to the new white boys in town.** Colonial rule of Spain over the biggest part of the continent. This is even obscure in Latin America, as most countries just jump from colonization to independence war.** That little ordeal with a certain Simon Bolivar. I heard some wars were fought around there in the south.** Mexican history is pretty fucking surreal. There was a Mexican-French war. ''Seriously''[[note]]Cinco de Mayo celebrates a Mexican victory during this war at the Battle of Pueblo[[/note]]. And there was once a ''Mexican Empire''. Twice, actually.* King Philip's War (1675-1678) was a hugely important clash between the united colonies of New England (including the descendants of the Mayflower Pilgrims) and the forces of the Wampanoag leader Metacomet, which claimed around 4,000 lives on both sides and [[EndOfAnAge decisively wiped out Indian resistance in New England]]. Despite its historical significance, it's depicted in fiction ''far'' less often than the preceding colonization of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, which was rather uneventful by comparison.* The French and Indian War.** In fact, the whole French colonization of North America.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** ''[[Literature/DearAmerica Look to the Hills: The Diary of Lozette Moreau]]'' is about a French slave girl and her owner who go to Canada at the beginning of the French and Indian War.*** The "Paul Gallant" series by Victor Suthren is a short series of WoodenShipsAndIronMen stories about a '''French''' marine officer in the mid-to-late 1740s, originally sailing from the colony that became Nova Scotia once the English conquered it.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

*** The first few memory sequences in ''[[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII Assassin's Creed 3]]'' take place during the French and Indian War, as does ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRogue''. Likewise, ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIIILiberation'' takes place in French Louisiana and ''Freedom Cry'' and pre-revolutionary Haiti. ** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Web Comics ]]

*** ''Webcomic/SnowByNight'', sorta. It's a FantasyCounterpartCulture, but Aradie is basically colonial Quebec.* For that matter, anything which happened in the future U.S. before independence, unless it involved Pocahontas, the Pilgrims, or witch trials in Salem. The entire period of British colonial rule over the thirteen American colonies is almost always treated as nothing more than one hundred fifty years of empty space between the arrival of the Pilgrims and the American Revolution. Pontiac's War (1763-1766) is practically never touched on, even though it was one of the biggest clashes with the local Indian population in the country's history.* '''America's Old Northwest'''** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** The Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper, which include a little story called ''Last of the Mohicans'', cover this setting (which was a main contributor to the French and Indian War as well).* The chaotic period between the American War of Independence and the War of 1812--when the newly-formed United States first began expanding West, bringing conflict with the local Indians to new heights--rarely comes up in fiction. In particular, there were the Cherokee Wars (1776-1795), the Northwest Indian War (1785-1795), and Tecumseh's War (1811-1813), which saw the Eastern tribes first [[SummonBiggerFish recognizing the newly unified American States as a serious threat to their sovereignty]], and responding in kind by [[EnemyMine putting aside their grudges to form some of the largest Indian military confederations in American history]]. The unity didn't last, but it led to some ''very'' important battles, like the Battle of Tippecanoe, the Battle of Fallen Timbers, and the many exploits of Dragging Canoe. The United States post-revolution and pre-Civil War is rarely covered in the media.** Creator/GoreVidal's ''Burr'' tackles the generation of the Founders, showing the events from the perspective of the long-lived and disgraced Colonel Aaron Burr. It includes, in addition to the American Revolution: the writing of the Constitution, Shay's Rebellion and Whiskey Rebellion, the Arrival of Citizen Genet, the first election campaign in American history, the first sex scandal in American history, the Burr-Hamilton duel and New York City in the era of Tammany Hall. ** "North and South" by John Jakes takes place during the two decades preceding Fort Sumter.** The ''Literature/DearAmerica'' series has 4 books in this time period, two are about settlers moving west, one is about the Alamo, and one is about an Irish immigrant who works in a factory.** ''Cloudsplitter'' by Russell Banks is HistoricalFiction about John Brown, almost entirely overlooked on screen drama. ** ''A Gathering of Days'' is set in New England circa 1830.** Part of the Leatherstocking series by James Fenimore Cooper is set in this era.** Tecumseh achieved a measure of popularity in Germany, becoming the hero of a series of novels and an East German movie.** The much-filmed ''Moby-Dick'' is also partly set in ante-bellum New England.** Creator/OrsonScottCard's ''Literature/TheTalesOfAlvinMaker'' is an AlternateHistory series, but it covers the early 19th century in much more depth than most other traditional HistoricalFiction out there. In particular, Tecumseh, Tenskwatawa, UsefulNotes/WilliamHenryHarrison, and Creator/WilliamBlake are all major characters, and Daniel Webster is a supporting character.* '''The Barbary Wars'''. You'd think people might be interested in a movie about the U.S. Navy and [[SemperFi Marine Corps]] fighting pirates, especially since it's the ''first war ever fought by the newly independent U.S.''. Overshadowed by the Napoleonic Wars.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** There is also ''Tripoli'' (1950) with John Payne and Creator/MaureenOHara as the Comtesse D'Arneau in the inevitable yashmak. Rather a dull affair.** ''Film/{{Amistad}}''.** ''Film/SleepyHollow'' is set in countryside New England in early 1800s.** ''Film/AlmostHeroes'' once again, is set in the early 1800's, and is about a rival party to the Louis and Clark expedition trying to reach the Pacific before they do.** ''Film/GangsOfNewYork'' likewise shows Old New York which makes the 20th Century pre-Giuliania TheBigRottenApple era look positively pristine by comparison.** The upcoming ''Film/TheRevenant'' is also set in this era.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** They do get a mention in one of the Literature/HoratioHornblower books, ''Hornblower and the Hotspur'', where the ''Hotspur'' is moored in a harbor not far from the USS ''Constitution'', which is on her way to deal with the Corsairs in Tripoli.** [[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

*** And again in the ''Series/{{Hornblower}}'' telefilm "Duty", which features the USS ''Liberty'' on a similar mission (name changed due to RuleOfSymbolism).* There was the Quasi War, between the United States and the Republic of France. Seems Hollywood doesn't see a market for a movie where the US of A gets to go beat up the French. Overshadowed by the French Revolutionary Wars.** Series/JackOfAllTrades* Speaking of pirates, no love for the War of 1812? Not even the Battle of New Orleans? Pirates, Choctaws, Arkansas flatboat men and Tennessee Davy Crockett types curb-stomping one of the best armies in the world despite being outnumbered nearly 3:1. Or alternatively, plucky Canadians whomping American invaders' butts and British burning down the White House. Yet, other than Eric Flint's ''Rivers of War'', not a lot.* The '''Independence Wars of Latin America'''** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** The Independence Wars, specifically in Chile, are an important plot subpoint in the latter books of the ''Literature/AubreyMaturin'' series.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

*** In the U.S. or UK media, there's ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresIII''* '''The UsefulNotes/MexicanAmericanWar''' of 1846-1848.** Remember the Alamo! (Technically part of the 1836 Texan War of Independence from Mexico, but still counts as an example since most people don't know anything about the entire period).*** Plenty of Texans at least [[MemeticMutation remember the Alamo]]. Far fewer remember Goliad, which fell to Mexican forces around the same time and saw more Texians killed. Any other battles save the Battle of San Jacinto are far less likely to be remembered. Good luck finding anyone at all who is familiar with the exploits of the short-lived Revolutionary Texas Navy or the Texas Navy of the Republic.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** ''The Blue and the Gray'' had some coverage of this war.*** ''One Man's Hero'' with Tom Berringer covered the St. Patricks Battalion.*** ''[[Literature/DearAmerica Valley of the Moon: The Diary of María Rosalia de Milagros]]'' takes place in Alta California before America takes it over.* Other than an offhand mention in ''Film/CitizenKane'' the '''Spanish-American War''' (1898), hasn't appeared very often.** One of the very very few works set in this conflict is the 1997 TNT two-parter RoughRiders, a realistic take on war in the style of ''Series/{{ANZACs}}'' or ''Series/BandOfBrothers''.** Doubly obnoxious because Kane was significantly based on William Randolph Hearst, who is sometimes credited for ''instigating'' the Spanish-American War. In fact, Kane is given a line ("you provide the prose poems, I'll provide the war"), which is quite similar to a line allegedly spoken by Hearst about the same war ("you furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war"). Oddly, Hearst is mentioned at a different point in the film, indicating that he still exists as himself in the Kaneverse.*** It was briefly mentioned in ''Series/MadMen'' with an old veteran proclaiming he was a [[UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt Rough Rider]]*** It was also a backstory in the Black Western ''Posse'', where the black protagonist served as a corporal in Cuba.*** Also a war in John Jakes' novel ''Homeland'' where the patriarch of the Crown family becomes a general in Cuba and was wounded. His nephew serve as a photographer and filmographer as well, too.** Also highly glossed-over is the '''The Philippine–American War''', which was a direct result of the Spanish-American War. Most of the films that deal with that war are mostly Filipino and from that POV. There are exceptions to the rule such as the film ''Amigo'' and ''The Real Glory'', centered on the U.S. point of view.* Generally speaking the United States between the Civil War and the First World War, except for the frontier, which has the entire Western genre. The Civil War's home front and period freshly after has been the background to works such as ''Film/GoneWithTheWind'' and ''Film/GangsOfNewYork'', but apart from that nobody seems to have much of an interest in the orderly part of the USA in that era.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Other Examples 1500-1913]]* While the Japanese have numerous stories about the '''Sengoku and Bakumatsu''' eras, those periods of history are not well known outside the country. (''Film/TheLastSamurai'' does not fit in either category and [[ArtisticLicenseHistory is not very historical anyway]]. Earlier periods are even less known. ** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** Technically, ''Film/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesIII'' is set in the Sengoku period.*** As are most of the Samurai movies that had a big success in the West, such as ''Film/TheSevenSamurai'' and ''Film/{{Kagemusha}}''.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** Also, the James Clavell novel ''Shogun''.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

*** Some video games, such as ''Inindo'' and the ''Nobunaga's Ambition'' series take place during the Sengoku period.* '''Modern Chinese History'''. There is disappointingly little on the Boxer Rebellion, '''The Taiping Rebellion''' and '''The Opium Wars'''. The Taiping Rebellion was one of the largest and bloodiest conflicts in history, led by a guy claiming to be the younger Chinese brother of Jesus Christ. Caused more deaths than the First World War. Number of movies about it? Zero. The Boxer Rebellion had every great power in the world put aside their differences and united to save Europeans and Chinese Christians from persecution. Or to extract concessions out of a vastly weakened empire while looting its cultural treasures and burning the rest, depending on who you ask. The Opium Wars has the East India Company serving as a Legal Drug Cartel to open up China's market.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film and TV ]]

*** ''Film/FiftyFiveDaysAtPeking'' deals with the Boxer Rebellion from a Western perspective.*** Alluded to in ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' and ''Series/{{Angel}}'': Spike killed his first Slayer during the Boxer Rebellion.*** The Chinese film [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Warlords "The Warlords"]]. So make that one.*** A lot of kung fu movies take place during the Opium Wars period in China, though outside of that it's virtually unknown.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** One of the {{Literature/Flashman}} novels takes place during this conflict and has the hero serving alongside the soldiers [[MonumentalDamage who destroy the Old Summer Palace]]*** ''Spring Pearl: The Last Flower'' in the discontinued ''[[Franchise/AmericanGirlsCollection Girls of Many Lands]]'' collection is about a teenage girl during this time.* Any Korean history that doesn't involve [[Series/{{Mash}} funny Army doctors]] or [[UsefulNotes/TheRulersOfNorthKorea dictators with stupid haircuts]] is sadly underrepresented. The '''Joseon Dynasty''' and the '''Korean Empire''' only rarely show up in period pieces outside of Korea--which is a shame, since the volatile cloak-and-dagger politics surrounding the final years of the Korean Empire are absolutely ''ripe'' with high drama. In the decades following the rise of Imperial Japan, Korea was considered a vital chess piece in the ongoing power struggle between Japan and China, leading to fighting on Korean soil in the UsefulNotes/FirstSinoJapaneseWar (the precursor to the much better-known UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar), the covert assassination of Korea's '''Empress Myeongseong''' by Japanese agents in 1895, and the forceful dethroning of '''Emperor Sunjong''' in 1910--which Korea would ultimately pay back with the assassination of the Japanese Prime Minister '''Ito Hirobumi''' by an angry Korean nationalist. If you can get past the obvious lack of a WhiteMaleLead, Empress Myeongseong's court at Seoul would actually make a pretty good setting for a [[SpyFiction spy movie]].* '''The Boer War'''. Are there even any British or South African movies that cover it?** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** ''Film/BreakerMorant'' is an Australian one.*** The Nazi propaganda movie ''Ohm Krüger'', in which a young Winston Churchill appears inspecting a concentration camp for Boer women and children.*** For Churchill's version of the story, there is always ''Young Winston'' (1972).*** In the 1960 version of ''[[Film/TheTimeMachine1960 The Time Machine]]'', which is set in 1899, George (the time-traveler) is told that he should be coming up with inventions to help Britain in the Boer War, but he doesn't like the idea of creating machines which contribute to death and destruction. Obviously, it's a metaphor for the UsefulNotes/ColdWar arms race.*** The biopic ''Film/{{Gandhi}}'' explores a bit of the aftermath of the war in its portrayal of Mohandas Gandhi's early life. It begins with Ghandi working as an attorney in South Africa, taking advantage of the British victory over the Boers (and his own British citizenship) to get the job, only to discover that the new British authorities still consider him a second-class citizen because of his Indian birth.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action Tv ]]

*** The war figures prominently into the [[{{Backstory}} backstories]] of some ''Series/DowntonAbbey'' characters.*** The war is also a background event during the appropriate seasons of ''Series/MurdochMysteries''. In one episode, Inspector Brackenreid, a former soldier, briefly enlists; in another, young Winston Churchill tours Canada telling his tales from the Boer War and winds up a murder suspect.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

*** Lord Chumley from ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'' mentions having been alive during the Boer War, noting that everyone's forgotten about it.* '''The UsefulNotes/RussoJapaneseWar''': Russia gets a major prestige and morale fall (with [[UsefulNotes/RedOctober well-known results]]), while Japan establishes itself as the first Asian industrialized power and joins the club of great powers of the Age of Imperialism.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** The Japanese film 'The Battle of the Japan Sea' covers the naval battle of Tsushima (1905).*** It is mentioned in the BioPic ''Nicholas and Alexandra'', which covers the reign of Czar Nicholas II, and includes some of the outrage on Russia's home-front at their loss in the war.*** The 1980 film ''203 Hill'' covers the Japanese siege of Port Arthur, while the NHK drama series Saka no Ue no Kumo does the entire war from the Japanese perspective.*** The Russo-Japanese War sparked of the Russian Revolution of 1905, which appears in a number of films, most famously ''Film/TheBattleshipPotemkin''.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** On Russian, there was ''Tsushima'' by Novikov-Priboi who was a revolutionary propagandist ''back then'', which mostly tells about how crappy was the Empire Before.*** ''Rasplata'' by Semyonov, former imperial Russian captain, which managed to be [[UpToEleven even more]] obnoxious in painting the exact opposite picture.*** Several novels by Valentin Pikul, such as ''Wealth'' and ''Cruisers''. Pikul's novel ''Wealth'' is this trope squared, since it describes the most obscure front of that war, namely Kamchatkan guerrilla resistance against Japanese landings.*** The Russo-Japanese war was done by ''Sidney Reily Ace of Spies''. It was a "nice little war" from the days when everyone considered each other a WorthyOpponent. It just got overlooked.[[/folder]]

!!UsefulNotes/WorldWarI

The problem with World War I is that World War II has Nazis, which makes it a straight Good vs Evil fight and therefore more popular with writers. And even within World War I, most media concentrate on the British Sector of the Western Front and, occasionally, Gallipoli, and ignore everything else entirely. You'd almost be forgiven for wondering why they called it a "world war" at all, since it was apparently just Brits fighting Germans in France...

[[folder:Examples]]* '''The Eastern Front'''. How many people have written about the Eastern Front, other than people from the region itself? 20 million Russian, Austrian, German, Bulgarian, and Romanian soldiers were fighting from the Baltic to the Caucasus, military strategy and tactics were being revolutionized, and empires were being broken up and new nations were being created.* One will never hear of '''Indian and [[UsefulNotes/NepaliWithNastyKnives Nepalese soldiers]]''', and '''Russia''' disappears between 1914 to 1917, when it is mentioned they surrendered (they didn't until the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918; until that, it was a zig-zag from "War until victory" by the Provisionals and proto-Whites to "Neither Peace nor War" by Reds). Oh, and '''Arabia''' doesn't get much coverage. Arabs and oil, what's that? And everyone forgets that the countries all owned colonies, leading to fights in various parts of Africa.** ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia''** ''Film/TheAfricanQueen''** ''Shout at the Devil''** The Literature/{{Tarzan}} novels ''Tarzan the Untamed'' and ''Tarzan the Terrible'' take during the East African Campaign of World War I.** The "cinematic novel" series with a nearly untranslatable to English title "Смерть на брудершафт"[[note]]A play on the idiom "drinking to brotherhood", a Russian customary rite by which two men acknowledge each other as "brothers" after simultaneously downing a glass of vodka in a certain manner. The title literally means "dying to brotherhood" and refers to the two protagonists of the series (a German and a Russian) drinking (supposedly poisoned drinks) to brotherhood in the end of book one.[[/note]] By the author of the ''Literature/ErastFandorin'' series, is set between 1914 and 1917 and revolves around espionage and counter-espionage on the Eastern front.** Since the War on the Eastern Front directly led to the two Russian Revolutions of 1917, it appears quite often as a backdrop to movies about the latter, e. g. Eisenstein's ''October'' and Pudovkin's ''The End of St. Petersburg''.** The 2010 film ''Legend of the Fist: Return of Chen Zhen'' may be the ONLY notable piece of media that shows Chinese coolies fighting for the British empire, if only briefly. The first scene of the movie features Chen Zhen (played by Creator/DonnieYen) and a squad of coolies in France. They fight Germans. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7Nv_stnD5I It is awesome.]] After this, though, the action moves to Shanghai and we TimeSkip to the time of the UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar.* The last book of the popular ''Literature/AnneOfGreenGables'' series by Creator/LMMontgomery features Anne's daughter Rilla as the protagonist. The book deals with what was going on in Canada for the families that sent loved ones overseas. It's a very moving piece that shows war from the point of view of those that want to do whatever they can, no matter how small, to help out the cause.** ''Rilla of Ingleside'' is a unique case in that it is the only Canadian novel written from a women's perspective about the First World War by a contemporary.* You'll ''occasionally'' get some inkling that the '''French armed forces''' may have been involved in some capacity. ** ''Film/TheGrandIllusion''** ''Film/PathsOfGlory''** ''Film/AllQuietOnTheWesternFront'' shows a unit fighting on different parts of the Western Front against the British and (mostly) the French.** ''Film/AVeryLongEngagement''.** ''Capitaine Conan''* Did you know Japan fought on the Allied side in World War I? It's barely mentioned, but many of their Chinese holdings they got during this time.** ''Siege of Fort Bismark'' is an adventure-comedy dealing with the battle for Fort Chintao.[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

** The Beauty and The Sorrow is a book that covers many perspectives of real people who lived during the war through their memoirs, letters, and other written works. Written with a post-modernish novelish tone though. ** ''The Boy Allies'' discusses some American teenagers fighting for the French before the U.S. entry.** Also not to be forgotten, ''All Quiet on the Western Front''.** ''The Singing Tree'' by Kate Seredy, follows the characters of ''The Good Master'' into the World War I era. Because they are children, it stays off stage, but a father goes off to fight, the farm gets Russian [=POW=]s to work, etc.** ''Ella of All-of-A-Kind Family'' was the last in a series about a Jewish family in New York City. It covers the Meatless Days, and Wheatless Days, and buying bonds, and two boyfriends, of the oldest girl and her best friend, go off to fight.* Also ignored is the '''Spanish Flu''', one of the worst Pandemics in human history.** But then it was very much overshadowed by the war when it happened (ironically enough, as far more people died during that time due to the flu than due to the war), and there aren't many works in general about pandemics, probably because [[AnyoneCanDie they would be too depressing]].** Two reasons the Spanish Flu was overshadowed include wartime censoring (reporting on the disease's effects were suppressed due to wartime morale concerns pretty much everywhere except neutral Spain, leading to the impression that Spain had it far worse, leading to the name), and because the disease finished running it's course within a year of the end of the war.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Anime And Manga ]]

*** Implied to be the reason Vera [[LesYay turned Hysterica]] into a vampire in ''Manga/DanceInTheVampireBund''.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** In a flashback to George's childhood from ''Film/ItsAWonderfulLife'', Mr. Gower's telegram says that his son died of influenza. The Spanish Flu isn't mentioned explicitly, but the fact that the telegram is dated "May 3, 1919" makes it pretty clear.*** The Spanish flu shows up briefly in ''Northern Light'', the short film shown at [[http://www.fortedmontonpark.ca/ Fort Edmonton Park]].** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' mentions it as part of why Edward became a vampire, which ''technically'' makes it part of a major pop-culture phenomenon of the 2000s-2010s.*** Kate Atkinson's ''Life After Life'' uses it as a main plot point (the flu kills the protagonist [[GroundhogDayLoop several times over]]).** [[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

*** Prominently featured in an episode of ''Series/DowntonAbbey'' - only ''one'' episode, mind, but the series tends to TimeSkip several months between each one. Used for a TonightSomeoneDies plot, as several major characters contract it.* Also ignored is the entire '''Middle Eastern front''' against the Ottoman Empire. Then again, that very front was actually relatively lively when compared to the Western Front and wouldn't make a good material for a WarIsHell theme so prevalent when it comes to World War I. Of course, one problem is some of the controversy surrounding this time in the Ottoman Empire, and that modern Turkey [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide really doesn't like anyone talking about certain things too much detail]], namely the fate of its Christian minorities during the war. So writers usually won't touch it, though writers of Armenian descent are almost expected to do at least one book about the Armenian genocide. Good luck finding anything about the Assyrians or Pontic Greeks though (who suffered genocides at the same time).** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia'' would beg to differ when it comes to the war front.*** And ''Film/TheLighthorsemen''.*** ''Film/{{Gallipoli}}'', based on a battle that is well-known in Australia and Turkey, but obscure elsewhere.*** ''Film/{{Ararat}}'''s [[ShowWithinAShow Movie Within A Movie]] covers the Siege of Van in Ottoman Turkey.*** ''The Lark Farm'' (''La Masseria Delle Allodole''), an Italian-made film (based on the novel ''Skylark Farm'' by Antonia Arslan) about the deportation of Armenians at the time of the war. Apparently the Turkish government bribed a lot of European movie theaters not to show it.*** ''Film/TheWaterDiviner''** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** ''The Forty Days of Musa Dagh'' by Franz Werfel, about the resistance of a small Armenian community to a forty day siege by Turkish forces trying to exterminate them, until they were rescued by the invading French. It was a very popular book in the Warsaw ghetto, incidentally. Turkey has been preventing anyone from adapting it into a movie for decades now.*** ''The Sandcastle Girls'' by Chris Bohjalian.*** The Armenian genocide is part of the backstory in ''Bluebeard'' by Creator/KurtVonnegut.*** ''Literature/{{Odinochka}}: Armenian Tales from the Gulag'' spends a good chunk of the book in the main character's flashback to the siege of Van in 1915, where as a young boy he helped with the war effort. Eventually he is sent outside of the city walls to deliver a call for help from the invading Russian army.* Rumor has it there was also a front between '''Austria and Italy'''.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** Which just involved Ernest Hemingway driving an ambulance, drinking, bedding a nurse, drinking some more, driving an ambulance some more, and reflecting upon the futility of war in a book called ''Literature/AFarewellToArms''* Nobody yet mentioned the conflict with which this war ''began in the first place'': between '''Austria and Serbia'''. Or the event which triggered it: the assassination of the Austrian crown prince.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** A little-known [[MadeForTvMovie Made-for-TV]] Disney Original Movie, ''Principal Takes a Holiday'', which briefly mentions the assassination in one scene. The same movie also mentions the American economic recession in the 80s. For a Disney Original, it was surprisingly intelligent.*** There are a number of European movies about Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his assassination.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

*** VideoGame/TheLastExpress presented all the political complexities of the war's beginning, in particular the conflict between Austria and Serbia. Unfortunately, due to tragic circumstances of marketing,[[WhatCouldHaveBeen almost nobody has played the game.]]* '''Russian Civil War''' that followed the Revolutions of 1917 is well depicted only in Soviet/Russian cinema. And even there everyone remembers only the major fronts, namely two: Reds vs Kolchak and Reds vs Denikin/Wrangel, plus sometimes the chaotic fracas in Ukraine. Civil War on the Caucasus? Battles vs Yudenich and Miller? Quelling of the Basmach rebellion? The post-Kolchak White remnant in the East? What's that?** The Far East is relatively well-represented in a weird way, thanks to the fact it involved one of the greatest psychos of this entire period: the self-styled khan [[UsefulNotes/UngernSternberg Baron von Ungern-Sternberg]]. Alternate history loves him to the point that [[Literature/ACentralEast there are stories]] in which it's specifically mentioned he died without achieving anything counterhistorical.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** ''Bila-zhila odna baba'' is a Russian film about the life of a peasant woman in this period. [[RussianGuySuffersMost Russian Gal Suffers Most]].*** There is a Polish film on the UsefulNotes/PolishSovietWar, roughly belonging to this theater.[[/folder]]

!!UsefulNotes/WorldWarII

Although World War II is done to death in pop culture, a number of fronts are rarely ever mentioned.

[[folder:Examples]]* Notably, the battles between Japan and China.** ''Film/EmpireOfTheSun''** ''Film/MenBehindTheSun''** Briefly mentioned in ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom''. Short Round was orphaned when the Japanese bombed Shanghai.** ''Film/FlowersOfWar'' (starring Creator/ChristianBale) centres on the Rape of Nanjing.** The ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'' album ''The Blue Lotus'' dealt with the Japanese invasion of China while it still happened, causing the Japanese embassy in Brussels to protest.** ''Literature/ShanghaiGirls'' discusses the early parts of the UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar, specifically the Battle of Shanghai.** ''Anime/NightRaid1931'' takes place in 1931-1932 China and focuses on a team of Japanese spies with psychic powers. The show covers the Mukden Incident (including the Japanese high command's reaction to it, quite notable for a Japanese production) and the 1932 Japanese bombing of Shanghai is talked about after the team moves to northern China in pursuit of a [[RenegadeRussian renegade Japanese army officer,]] who is also a psychic and brother to the team's female member Yukina.** ''Film/TheLastEmperor''. Though primarily a biopic about Pu Yi, the Last Emperor of China, it deals heavily with the Japanese occupation of Manchuria (where Pu Yi was appointed as a puppet ruler).* The Polish-Soviet War and Polish September Campaign also deserve better coverage than they get. Also, the Polish resistance is hardly ever mentioned.** A bit appears in the work of film director Andrzej Wajda (a Pole), e. g. ''Ashes and Diamonds''.** The 2014 first-person shooter ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_Front Enemy Front]]'' is about an American reporter embedded with many European resistance groups and telling their stories to the world. The fact that it covered many lesser-known theaters of World War II such as Poland and Norway was a selling point in its (modest) marketing campaign. Half the missions are related to the Warsaw Uprising, and the final mission is the fall of Warsaw. Not unexpectedly, it was a Polish studio that made the game.** Music/{{Sabaton}} made the song ''40:1'' about the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wizna battle of Wizna]], which despite such elements as a ridiculously lopsided LastStand and a HeroicVow[[note]] the Polish officer in charge had vowed not to leave his post alive. He did surrender [[AFatherToHisMen to spare his men unnecessary deaths]], then killed himself with a handgrenade[[/note]] is hardly known outside Poland. * Same about the fall of Western Europe in spring 1940. It is rarely depicted besides some French TV films, and these tend to focus on the exodus only (defeat announced on the radio, people fleeing massively on the roads as far as they can while some German planes are shooting at them). It always seems like the French and British forces didn't fight at all, which is entirely false.* Generally speaking, the period 1939-early 1942 (except for the attack on Pearl Harbor) tends to be neglected in film, for two reasons. One, this was before the U.S. became involved directly, thus not getting much interest from Hollywood. The second reason is that it was only in 1942 that the Allies (including the Soviets) actually started winning significant victories and keeping ground, unlike the back and forth in North Africa. The major exception is the Battle Of Britain.* The '''other African fronts'''. Involving e. g. Free French and Vichy forces in various parts of the continent (e. g. the British attack on the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir in 1940) and Italian-occupied parts of East Africa (Eritrea and Abyssinia). A rare example of the latter is ''The Best of Enemies'' (1961) starring David Niven and Alberto Sordi.* Also the various actions in the '''Middle East''', e.g. the Allied campaign against the Vichy forces in Syria and Nazi attempts to bring an Axis-friendly government to power in Iraq.** The fact that these two fronts involved the Allies fighting the French rather than the Germans is a major reason everyone prefers to forget them. * '''Burma''', which earned the nickname 'The Forgotten War' even while fighting was still going on. This is despite the fact that it's essentially Britain's "jungle war" equivalent to the Pacific Theatre.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** ''Film/TheBridgeOnTheRiverKwai''.*** ''Objective: Burma!'', in which American troops parachute in to destroy a Japanese base, then face a difficult journey to safety. A particular exemplar of this trope (and AmericaWonWorldWarII) for downplaying British involvement in a mostly British and Australian campaign. Released in the UK in 1945, it was withdrawn a week later after anger from veterans, the military and (it was said) UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill himself.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** ''Literature/McAuslan'' alludes to this as the narrator (and Fraser) had served in the campaign before becoming an officer.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

*** ''VideoGame/{{Commandos}} 2'' includes one mission set in Burma.* The '''Italian''' Front on the other hand... The Italian campaign also vanishes from even history books after the fall of Rome and the Normandy invasion. It's as if the rest of the country ceased to exist for a year... all the fighting up to the borders of Switzerland, Austria and France gets ignored.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

*** A Creator/GarthEnnis ''War Stories'' story called 'D-Day Dodgers' is set during this period, and references how the whole campaign became just a sideshow.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** ''Anzio''.*** ''The Audie Murphy Story'' may happen in Italy, but it's not made obvious.*** Large chunks of ''Film/{{Patton}}''.*** ''Film/TeaWithMussolini'', focussed on a group of British and American political prisoners led by an ambassador's wife who has deluded herself into believing she's a guest of honour of her beloved il Duce. *** It's not all that uncommon: ''Literature/TheEnglishPatient'' and ''Film/LifeIsBeautiful.'' Although none of these movies focus on the combat, suggesting that [[LatinLover other]] [[SceneryPorn aspects]] of Italy are what appeal to filmmakers.*** ''The Tuskeegee Airmen'' tells the story of how the titular squadron escorted the B-17s of the 15th Air Force from its base in Ramitelli to bombing missions in Germany and eastern Europe. Since most of the action takes place in the air, one could argue that the fighting in Italy itself was bypassed, but the movie also covers the squadron's role in the conquest of Sicily and Italy as well.*** ''Film/{{Road47}}'' takes place entirely in late 1944, Italy.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** ''Literature/CatchTwentyTwo'',*** ''Literature/AThreadOfGrace'' is set primarily during the eighteen months between Italy's surrender and V-E Day, covering various factions in the former Nazi-allied, now Nazi-occupied nation.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

*** It does feature in a few of the ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' games, however, usually depicting the notorious Battle of Monte Cassino.* The fact that some seven million Slavs (mostly Poles, Czechs, Russian P.O.W.s and other), Gypsies, homosexuals, mentally handicapped people and political dissidents as well as six million Jews died in the '''UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust''' is hardly ever mentioned. ** [[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

*** One exception to this is the 70s miniseries ''Series/{{Holocaust}}'' in which these groups (and the identifying badges they were forced to wear) are all mentioned and Gypsies are briefly shown in one camp scene.* Any coverage of the battles in '''Crete and Greece'''?** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** ''The Travelling Players'' by Theodoros Angelopoulos which shows the Greek Resistance fighting the Nazis only to be betrayed by the English. ** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** There's ''Literature/TheGunsOfNavarone''.*** Some of Alistair [=MacLean=]'s other books also take place in Greece or other parts of Eastern Europe.*** ''Captain Correlli's Mandolin'' by Louis de Bernières (and its film adaptation).* '''The Russo-Finnish War''' (both of them) might have gotten more play if the Finns hadn't been on the side of the Nazis. Otherwise, it seems made for TV, especially the Winter War which easily lends itself to a DavidVersusGoliath story.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** There are a number of Finnish films, as well as Russian ones such as ''The Cuckoo'', where one Finnish and one Russian soldier argue over the hospitality of a Sami woman.*** Another Russian film is ''The Dawns Here are Quiet'', in which a small group of Soviet trainees in Karelia (near the Finnish border) have to fend off a larger German paratrooper force.* The '''Russian Front''' of World War II had the disadvantage of UsefulNotes/ColdWar politics, with some in the West, and dissenters in the Warsaw Pact seeing it as EvilVersusEvil. It's also the fact that this was unquestionably far more violent, bloody and devastating, with Leningrad being laid siege, whole villages made to starve to death all under the guide of Nazi Germany's Generalplan Ost. This has the disadvantage of leaving such battles as Kursk as well as the number of female combat veterans in the Red Army (a Soviet innovation) including snipers and flying aces. About the only times this gets addressed is in movies about the Holocaust, since the Red Army liberated the first camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau. ** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** ''A Time to Love and a Time to Die'' by Creator/DouglasSirk.*** ''Film/CrossOfIron''*** ''Film/ComeAndSee'' by Klimov.*** The ''Liberation'' series of Soviet films of the 'Great Patriotic War' covers the Soviet-versus-Nazi conflict (and sometimes mentions that others were fighting the Germans as well).*** There are a number of films about Stalingrad, particularly, erm, ''Film/{{Stalingrad 1993}}'' or ''Film/EnemyAtTheGates''.*** '[[http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/64470 Stalingrado]]' by a Spanish band Híbrido, bizarrely enough.*** ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unknown_War_%28documentary%29 The Unknown War]]'' TV mini-series was ''specifically made'' by a USA-USSR joint venture in 1978 to break this complete silence for the West audiences. The name couldn't reflect the contemporary state of affairs better.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

*** The first ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' and ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyWorldAtWar'': The Russian campaigns featured the Battle of Stalingrad to the Fall of Berlin.*** ''VideoGame/CloseCombat III: The Russian Front''*** ''VideoGame/GraviteamTactics'' covers several Eastern Front campaigns around the creators' hometown of Kharkov.* The '''German campaign''' in the Balkans, and the Yugoslav, Greek and Albanian resistance movements which came after it.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** ''Film/ForceTenFromNavarone'' is set in wartime Yugoslavia.* Few people have even heard of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Greenland_during_World_War_II German presence in Greenland]], where a group of 15 Greenlanders were able to fend off the Germans [[RockBeatsLaser on dogsled.]]* Also forgotten is the fact that over 130,000 Japanese in America and Canada were persecuted and put into concentration camps because it was feared they were spies for the Japanese government after Pearl Harbor.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** ''ComeSeeTheParadise''*** Touched upon in ''Film/TheKarateKid'', as Mr. Miyagi's wife and newborn son died in one of these camps.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** ''Obasan'' by Joy Kogawa.*** ''Under the Blood-Red Sun'' and ''Eyes of the Emperor'' by Graham Salisbury*** ''Weedflower'' by Cynthia Kadohata*** ''The Moon Bridge" by Marcia Savin*** ''Film/SnowFallingOnCedars'' is set during the 1950s, but the backstory for several main characters revolves around the fallout of the forced internment of the Japanese.*** ''JourneyToTopaz'' follows a Japanese-American girl and her family (excluding her father, who was perceived as a bigger threat and separated from them) and their experiences in the concentration camps.* The Soviet-Japanese War of 1945 never gets used, maybe for fear of EndingFatigue.** Masaki Kobayashi's ''Ningen no joken/The human condition'' trilogy: the protagonist winds up in a Soviet [=POW=] camp after being captured during this conflict.** ''Film/TheLastEmperor'' had a very brief shot of Soviet [[ItsRainingMen paratroopers landing]] on an airfield in Manchuria right when Pu Yi was going to try to escape China. A paratrooper then opens the door to his plane and captures him.* The history of the smaller Axis countries (e.g. Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia) during World War 2 is generally ignored, or they are simply presented as being occupied by the Germans.* Hardly anybody knows about Australia's involvement in the war, despite the fact that this was the one time in the 20th century that the Australian mainland was attacked by a foreign country (the Japanese bombing of Darwin on the northern coast).** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** ''Film/{{Kokoda}}'' focuses on a fierce battle in Papua New Guinea between Australian and Japanese forces.*** ''Film/{{Australia}}'' climaxes with the Japanese bombing of Darwin.* The fall of Singapore. An entire Japanese army basically ''bicycled'' their way through a dense jungle, outmaneuvered, and outfought the British garrison stationed there. Winston Churchill considered this the worst disaster that had happened so far in the war (and considering this was a year after Dunkirk, that was saying a lot). ** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Game ]]

*** ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonor: Rising Sun'' has one mission take place in occupied Singapore as you attempt to infiltrate a meeting between Japanese & Nazi officials.* While many films have been made about naval battles during the war, relatively few works have focused on the merchant marine and civilian cargo ships that were risking life and limb shipping supplies to Britain and the Soviet Union across an Atlantic that was infested with German U-boats.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** ''Film/TheLongVoyageHome'' is a Creator/JohnFord film about a merchant vessel that must bring a cargo of ammuntion to Britain from the United States in 1940.*** It comes up several times during ''Film/TheImitationGame,'' though naturally the main focus is on Alan Turing's codebreaking. At the climax, they have a matter of minutes to either report an upcoming attack on a merchant convoy (and risk letting the Germans know they've cracked Enigma), or letting the convoy sink so that they can save more vital targets.* Concerning Alan Turing, almost everyone knows of his and Bletchley Park's work in cracking the Enigma. Nobody outside of Poland seems to have ever heard of Marian Rejewski and his crew pioneering the cryptanalysis of the Enigma, including the cracking of earlier varieties of the device, obtaining the actual hardware, etc. etc. long before the Brits got to it, then turning the results to the Western Allies at the onset of the war. This lack of knowledge is slightly justified in that the British government refused to let them into Bletchley Park, leaving the continuation of the work to Turing.[[/folder]]

!!Other

[[folder:Examples]]* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War The Congo War]] (aka "Africa's World War", aka the deadliest human conflict in post-WWII history) is surprisingly obscure both in fiction and in real life - it was hardly ever mentioned on the news, for [[DarkestAfrica some]] [[ThrowawayCountry reason]], despite involving eight countries and killing 5 and a half million people.* Despite being used as an {{Expy}} for the Vietnam War in ''Series/{{MASH}}'' (which ran about five times longer as a TV series than the war it alleged to depict was a 'hot' war) the '''Korean War/Conflict/Action''' is not only largely ignored in fiction but in RealLife as well. It's occasionally mentioned as a BackStory for elderly American veterans now that WWII vets are becoming thin on the ground (as far back as TheEighties, when WWII vets were still fairly common, a middle-aged character obviously too young to have been in WWII would sometimes be established as a Korean War vet). A possible exception to the "Forgotten War's" status in the English-speaking world is among people with an interest in military aviation, since the Korean War has a fair degree of notoriety in aviation circles as the first conflict in which jet aircraft fought against each other (both sides ''had'' jets in World War II, and used them in combat, but they were relatively few in number and opposing jets never encountered each other). ** [[/folder]]

*** ''ComicStrip/ECComics'' also had many stories set in the Korean War, drawn by Creator/HarveyKurtzman.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** A few good war films in the 50s, most notably Creator/SamuelFuller's ''The Steel Helmet'' (which earned its director an invitation to the Pentagon), ''Fixed Bayonets'' as well as Anthony Mann's ''Men in War'' is set in the Korean War. *** Creator/ClintEastwood has played a number of Korean War veterans, most notably in ''Film/AbsolutePower'', ''Film/GranTorino'', and ''Film/HeartbreakRidge''.[[note]]Eastwood himself served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, but did not see combat.[[/note]]*** The film adaptation of ''The Bridges At Toko Ri''.*** ''The Hunters'', another late 1950s film adaptation of a novel about the air war in Korea.*** The 2004 Korean film ''[[Film/{{Taegukgi}} Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War]]'' is ''the'' biggest-budget Korean War film made to date, breaking box office records in Korea. It is a must-see for anyone interested in this conflict, though those with weak constitutions should be advised that there is much {{Gorn}} involved.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** Robert B. Parker's detective ''Spenser'' was stated to be a Korean War vet in some of the earlier novels.** [[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

*** Jim Rockford of ''Series/TheRockfordFiles'' served in the Korean War.*** Covered in ''Series/MadMen'', since this is where Dick Whittman became Don Draper.*** Both Blanche's late husband and Dorothy's ex-husband were mentioned to have been Korean War veterans in ''Series/TheGoldenGirls''.*** Trevor Ochmonek, the wacky neighbor on ''Series/{{Alf}}'', was a Korean War veteran.*** In ''Series/That70sShow'', Red is a World War II and Korean War vet. The show starts off in the year 1976.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

*** ''Sabre Ace Conflict Over Korea'', a 1997 flight sim.* The '''Spanish Civil War''' doesn't get a lot of play, [[CreatorProvincialism except in Spain]]. Mostly serves as a backstory for a KnightInSourArmour character types in fiction set in the late Thirties to Fifties.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** Also briefly mentioned in ''Film/{{Casablanca}}'', the female lead actress of which immediately proceeded to star in the film version of ''Literature/ForWhomTheBellTolls''.*** ''Film/TheSpiritOfTheBeehive'', and the two Creator/GuillermoDelToro films it inspired, ''Film/TheDevilsBackbone'' and ''Film/PansLabyrinth''.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** And ''Literature/ForWhomTheBellTolls''.*** Also Bertolt Brecht's play, ''Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar''.* Maybe too modern, but the space programs post-Apollo. TheSpaceRace from Sputnik to Apollo-Soyuz was only the first twenty years out of fifty, but that's when all the movies are set.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** ''Film/SpaceCowboys'' starring Clint Eastwood, James Garner, Billy Bob Thornton, and Donald Sutherland as four over-the-hill 1960's test pilots[[note]]and probable Korean War veterans, to address another forgotten era[[/note]] recruited for a sensitive Space Shuttle mission.** The Challenger disaster has been the subject of a 1990 ABC made-for-TV-movie and a 2013 BBC/Discovery Channel docudrama. The later was much better regarded by critics than the former.* Latin American history in the 20th century and after:** The Cuban Revolution. Who was that t-shirt dude again? *** Part of the story in ''Film/TheGodfather'' Part 2.*** Creator/StevenSoderbergh's two-part biopic starring Benicio del Toro as ''Che''.*** Also ''I Am Cuba'' by Mikhail Kalatazov which was suppressed by the Soviet Union and Cuba but rediscovered in the 90s.*** Spain Rodriquez's ''Che'' the Graphic Novel.*** Also Graham Greene's ''Our Man in Havana'' is set in the period just before this time.*** Strangely most of the important cultural works tend to be more pro-Cuban than otherwise. One exception is the Cuban section of Creator/AlfredHitchcock's little-seen ''Topaz''.** The dictatorial regimes in most of Latin America during the Cold War. There is barely any country where nothing interesting happened. The Salvador Allende coup d'etat in Chile, the Tlaltelolco Massacre in Mexico, the Sendero Luminoso terrorist attacks in Peru, the oppressive dictature in Argentina (and Uruguay, and Brazil and several other countries) and the extremely bloody conflicts in Central America, such as the genocides in Guatemala under Lucas and Rios Montt, El Salvador and Nicaragua. A lot of these are just recently starting to be studied on their home countries. Though the thing is, the main villain in a lot of these stories is often regarded to [[EagleLand actually be the U.S. itself]] as they are blamed for helping regimes and sabotaging elections [[RedScare when the countries elected communist sympathizers]] which makes it all [[GrayAndGreyMorality more morally confusing]].** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** ''Literature/InTheTimeOfTheButterflies'' is about the Mirabal sisters, who were anti-government activists in the Dominican Republic during the 1950s and 1960s.* Proxy conflicts of the '''Cold War''' excluding Vietnam.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

*** ''VideoGame/GraviteamTactics'' covers the UNITA-South Africa offensive against FAPLA and Cuba in February 1988 in the ''Operation Hooper'' campaign. The 1969 Sino-Soviet border conflict near Central Asia is covered in the ''Zhalanashkol 1969'' campaign.*** ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps2'' has a few flashback missions that take place in UsefulNotes/{{Angola}} in the 1980s where the CIA is supporting local warlord Jonas Savimbi in fighting off communist guerillas.*** [[Franchise/MetalGear Gray Fox's]] backstory as revealed in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPortableOps'' has him as a {{Child Soldier|s}} who participated in the [[UsefulNotes/{{Mozambique}} Mozambican War of Independence]] on the FRELIMO side, which was heavily supported by the Soviet Union and the rest of the Communist bloc.* The '''Warlord Period''' in Republican China (1916-28) doesn't get a lot of attention except in a few military books published by Osprey and movies filmed in Mainland China.** Creator/JohnFord's final film ''7 Women''.** ''Film/TheSandPebbles''.** The 2011 Chinese film ''Shaolin'' takes place during this period. Andy Lau & Nicholas Tse both play warlords.* The '''period of UsefulNotes/MaoZedong's rule''' in China gets occasional publicity as the time when China took over Tibet, or in stories about intellectuals exiled to the countryside. Don't expect much about how the Communists won the civil war, or about the famines Mao caused. Doesn't help that the Chinese government ''really'' doesn't like talking about this period, and China's now-enormous movie-going public means filmmakers have to be pretty careful about what they make if they want their films to pass approval by the censorship bureau and get a piece of the Chinese market.*** Chinese filmmaker Tian Zhuangzhuang made a movie called ''The Blue Kite'' set in this period; he got banned from making movies for ten years.** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** ''Literature/DreamsOfJoy'' by Lisa See deals with a Chinese-American girl going to China to visit her biological father, believing Mao's propaganda, and ending up married and working on a commune in rural China during the Great Leap Forward.*** ''Lili: A Novel'' is about a Chinese woman who gets out of jail in China, and although it doesn't take place during Mao's rule, she does discuss the problems that happened during that time period.* '''The Great Purge''' and TheGulag don't get a lot of publicity outside of Creator/AleksandrSolzhenitsyn's work. ** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*** Alexei German made two films ''My Friend Ivan Lapshin'' and ''Khrustalyov My Car!'' in the Stalinist period. The latter film shows the little-known (even by anti-Stalinists) "Doctor's Plot" and actually shows [[spoiler:Stalin's death]].** [[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*** ''Literature/OneDayInTheLifeOfIvanDenisovich'', and ''Literature/TheGulagArchipelago'' by Creator/AleksandrSolzhenitsyn, of course.*** ''Literature/{{Odinochka}}: Armenian Tales from the Gulag'' centers around a clan of Armenian prisoners in a Siberian gulag in 1930, going into what led each prisoner to end up there (reasons vary from being part of anti-communist nationalist groups to holding secret Church services). The main character and narrator ends up in solitary confinement for starting a fight in the lunch room.[[/folder]]----